I'm talking about the red card incident involving county star Brian Dooher.
As I said at the time it was revealed that he had escaped punishment for the offence, I had a lot of sympathy for referee who had the courage to send off a man who had captained and All-Ireland was just getting back from injury to hopefully play a part in the Red Hands' championship tilt. Well, it now seems as if the whistler involved has turned his back on refereeing in Tyrone.
A source close to the Augher St.Macartans club has confirmed to me that Gerard Treanor has quit acting as one of the Valley club's referees and is instead taking charge of adult games in Monaghan instead.
Treanor, who is actually a native of the Farney county but is married to an Augher girl, had been refereeing youth games in his home county for the past few years anway, but I am told he has been disillusioned by what happened in the Dooher incident and has, accordingly, chosen to utilise his considerable skills across the border in senior ties as a direct result.
I have not seen any official reason given for Dooher being cleared off the red card offence, but I am strongly advised that it was on technical grounds. But a broad term like that covers a multitude of matters and, as I have said countless times, a full explanation should be provided as to how such decisions are reached - particularly ones that are involving high profile figures.
Transparency is something that does not figure largely in GAA disciplinary affairs at local level - and that leaves the door open for folk to come up with their owns answers. That is not fair on people like Dooher - pictured above - or Treanor.
The Augher club are clearly not happy at the fact that their official was not even consulted about the matter and now a club that was proud to have three senior referees find that they have lost perhaps their best one - absolutely through no fault of their own.




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