Scott McGleish – Honest Guy

Veteran Orient striker Scott McGleish, 36, is one of those players who is always prepared to stop for a chat after a game – no matter what the result.

On Saturday McGleish was cleaned out by a sliding tackle from Alan Sheehan and referee Trevor Kettle boiled over and showed the Swindon defender a red card.

The incident happened on the other side of the pitch from the press box and so I have to admit I couldn’t say one way or the other how bad the challenge was, but – to his credit – McGleish didn’t make a meal of it and got straight up. Afterwards he told me:

“It was a genuine challenge. He slid into the tackle, but came and apologised for catching me as I walked away. I was telling him there was no problem when I spotted the ref fumbling for his cards and told Alan I thought he was about to get sent off. Frankly, if players are going to get sent off for that, then there’ll be three or four red cards every week.”

At the time Sheehan himself looked stunned at the decision and for one moment I thought he was going to refuse to walk. Either Sheehan’s acting skills are up there with Hollywood’s greatest or he was genuinely perplexed.

Danny Wilson was equally bemused at the decision but said:

“I’m not going to give him (the referee) the satisfaction of getting the FA t get my down to London to spank my backside because I had a go at him, but I have to say that his performance was very, very poor and when I put my marks together it’ll reflect that when I send them off.

We know that it’s difficult to referee a game and we’re not going to sit in judgment and say he’s got this wrong and that wrong and this, that and the other – he got everything wrong in lots of case today. That’s the reason the game turned out like it did. It started being niggly and difficult for him to manage and handle. I think he’s become the victim of his own decision making.”

As far as the red card was concerned Wilson said:

“I could understand a booking. I can’t understand the red card.”

You also had to feel for McGleish who had nodded in the 3rd minute only to see the effort chalked off for offside. He said:

“There was no way that was offside and I couldn’t believe it. If any part of your body is in an offside position then they can give it, but not even my kneecap was off!”

O’s boss Russell Slade was left feeling frustrated by the two free kicks that got Swindon back into the game and groaned:

“First of all, we’ve done more than enough to win a football match. In terms of creating chances I felt we created more than Swindon all afternoon. Today we could’ve scored four or five and on the flip side of that the free kicks, having just looked at them, are not free kicks.

There was nothing we could do about the second one – it was a great finish. I was a bit disappointed with the first one and the marking. I’m disappointed with the point that we got because we so deserved three points today.

I’ve not looked at the sending off. I will look at it. It might have been a bit harsh, I don’t know without video evidence and couldn’t venture an opinion right now.

Matt Spring’s was a great strike that got us in front, deservedly so. And you think then that we can perhaps go on, but Swindon got themselves back in the game at the right time. To be fair we get on the front foot again, We get a second and you think time’s running out for Swindon and we can certainly hang on to the points, but it wasn’t to be.

I thought we were well set up and we looked to be coping and creating chances. I thought it was there today, but it got snatched away from us.

It was nice to look at me bench and think ‘It’s nice and strong today’. But apart from the enforced change I thought we were doing well enough and it’s just two freak decisions if you like that that’s taken and snatched our points away.