We are approaching the 20th anniversary of one of the great television moments. The day when my old friend Chris Sutton looked into the camera after Celtic had beaten Kilmarnock at Rugby Park with four unanswered goals – but lost the league title to Rangers after they had taken six off Dunfermline at Ibrox.
Sutty summed up the margin of Rangers’ victory by saying of their opponents: “We knew they’d lie down and they have done.” The aftermath of that candid summary of events was predictably volcanic.
Chris copped a five-match ban from the SFA. Dunfermline considered legal action, claiming they had sufficient grounds to allege defamation of character.
And Sutton brought the matter to a typically pugnacious conclusion by publicly stating he would never apologise to then Dunfermline manager Jimmy Calderwood for what he had said I only recall the incident, which took place on May 25 2003, to mind because Chris’ name was put forward, along with his own, by Ally McCoist the other day as being the kind of ex-pros who could be drafted in to lend a hand with the Video Assistant Referee process which has gone horribly, and some would say irretrievably, wrong.