THIS may be the season of goodwill, but at the moment there is little
love lost between Scottish champions McMahon Kelburne and the Scottish
Hockey Union disciplinary committee, which has just suspended coach
Derek Forsyth for the remainder of the season.
Forsyth's crime, according to the club president, is ''alleged
breaches of his previous suspension of December 3 and 4'' during the
opening series of matches in the men's indoor league at Perth.
The vagueness of the charge is obviously an irritation to the Kelburne
club, but what has really upset them is that they knew nothing of the
disciplinary meeting on December 7 at which Robertson claims ''Forsyth
was charged, tried, and found guilty.''
On the surface this appears to be an extraordinary state of affairs
when a player or coach is not given the opportunity to defend himself,
and so it is understandable that Kelburne have now lodged an appeal on
his behalf.
Forsyth's original brush with the authorities came in an outdoor
cup-tie against Harris Academy FP on October 23 at Maryfield, Dundee,
when a local umpire, officiating at the game, had a disagreement with
Forsyth, who was subsequently suspended for one weekend.
This, in itself, was a rather unusual suspension as suspensions
normally are for weeks or matches. Had the suspension been applied to
the outdoor game, as it obviously should have, Forsyth would have missed
a maximum of two games, but in this instance he was out of commission
for five matches.
As it is a rare occurrence for a coach to be suspended, Kelburne were
at a loss as to the restrictions placed on Forsyth. Their team manager
was assured that it was legal for him to enter the arena but he could
not encroach into the enclosed area of the pitch.
Forsyth, however, did admit to me yesterday to having ''transgressed
inside the restricted area briefly, but not one involving Kelburne, so
it's now open to debate whether it is this instance which has brought
about a near doubling of his original suspension.
This is the second successive season Forsyth has been in trouble with
the authorities. He was suspended earlier this year following an
incident in the Grange-Kelburne match but his suspension was put on hold
when he appealed. That scenario subsequently led to a threatened
umpires' strike.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article