Know the Ref - Hibs home

By Stuart Gillespie
Updated Saturday, 11th April 2009

Our run of some of the SFA's worst officials continues on Monday night's game when Iain Brines makes the trip to Paisley. He's already taken charge of one game between Saints and Hibs this season - and it didn't end well.

The game in question was back in January, when we suffered a 2-0 defeat at Easter Road. A similar result on Monday would be a disaster, especially if Falkirk beat Kilmarnock today.

On the plus side, he was in charge when we picked up our first win of the season at Inverness back in September, although he did give the hosts a rather dubious first half penalty. Games last season saw a win against Hearts at Tynecastle and an away draw with Dundee United. The Hearts game is perhaps noteworthy because no Jambos players were sent off, a rare occurrence these days.

The 2006/07 was our first season back in the top flight and saw Mr Brines take charge of an early game against Dundee United at home, which we lost 3-1. United also had Barry Robson sent off, a decision Mr Brines was slated for but one that was probably correct. His two other Saints games that seasons were midweek draws with Motherwell and Hibs.

When we did the double in 2005/06, Mr Brines often took charge of our games. In amongst them are a League Challenge Cup win at Queen of the South, a League Cup loss to Motherwell and a loss to Hamilton. There's also a 4-1 hammering of Airdrie United, when the opposition had a player sent off for swearing. We were then given a free-kick and scored (yes, we did score the odd free-kick back then!).

Soccerbase only shows three more Saints games involving Mr Brines - a draw with Falkirk and another win over Airdrie in 2005/04 and a draw with Ross County the previous season, in which a County player was sent off.

Aside from the win over Saints, Mr Brines has only taken charge of one Hibs game this season when they amusingly lost to Morton in the League Cup. Last season saw a draw with Falkirk and a win over Gretna, in which he sent off the opposition keeper late on. There was also a defeat to Celtic.

There were quite a few Hibs games involving Mr Brines in 2006/07 so I'll just pick out some of note, one being when they hammered Gretna (then in the first division) in the cup. There was also a win over Celtic and an away defeat to Rangers, when Ivan Sproule was sent off. More noteworthy was a game at Ibrox in 2005/06 when Sproule famously bagged a hat-trick. Other Hibs games involving Mr Brines that season was a defeat to Rangers and another to Aberdeen.

The previous season, Mr Brines was the man in charge when Hibs lost at Parkhead and beat Dundee. Soccerbase shows other games from previous seasons involving Mr Brines, but there doesn't seem to be anything of note.

While the officials in Scotland are bad, many fans believe Mr Brines to be one of the worst. Having seen his performance in a Scottish Cup game earlier this season involving two non-league sides, I can't really disagree. Interestingly, he has shown six red cards this season but just one in 2009, and none in the SPL.