St Andrews United boss Garry Wright boots water bottle in fury at late penalty call

Referee Ross Donaldson adjudged that United defender Tom Milne had fouled a Glens attacker in the 91st minute, leading to Cammy Muirhead shooting past Logan Halliday from 12 yards to send Saints spinning to defeat in this East of Scotland Football League Premier Division encounter.

“I just basically didn’t think it was a penalty,” Wright told the Herald and Citizen. “The ball’s been put in our box, the Glenrothes boy’s taken a touch, he’s going away from goal. Tom was quite tight to him, but I don’t think he’s fouled him.

"So I turned away and kicked a water bottle. That’s when the referee’s come over and booked me.

"I think the linesman was in his ear.

"If there had been no water bottle I would have kicked the ground.

"It’s just one of those things where I have kicked the water bottle, not in the direction of anybody, just away out the road.

"I don’t really regret kicking it, because it wasn’t aimed at anybody.

"It was just one of those ones where I was like: ‘b….y hell’.

"I even spoke to Glenrothes supporters after the game and they said: ‘Never a penalty’.

"I have watched it back and in my eyes it is never a penalty. If I thought I was wrong I would be the first person to admit it.

"I don’t know if I will get in trouble for this, but I looked at the referee (in the video playback) and he’s not even looking at the challenge for the penalty.

"But it wasn’t just that I was raging at. I was also raging at the lead up to the penalty, I was quite angry with how it happened.

"We were in possession of the ball out wide and we lost possession and it put us under pressure.”

Muirhead’s penalty strike was his second goal of the match, having earlier headed past Halliday early in the second half to equalise Owen Andrew’s first half tap in for Saints which gave the visitors a deserved half-time lead.

The game’s other main incident came after 75 minutes when United’s Jason Watson landed a second yellow card plus a red for a desperate challenge on Glen’s Freddie Rowe.

"I thought the sending off was soft,” Wright added. “Jason has fouled the boy, not a dirty tackle. It’s a free-kick, but the referee has seen it as a second booking.

"I didn’t think the referee had a great performance.”

United are second bottom with two points from six games, but Wright isn’t panicking.

"There’s been about four games we’ve been in front and we’ve just not seen it out,” he said. “I would be really worried if we were losing games by five or six but we’re not, it’s the odd goal.

"The players that we’ve got are good enough and I’m confident we can turn it around.”

Saints visit Upper Annandale in the Challenge Cup second round this Saturday with kick-off at 2pm.

"I’m not looking at this thinking: ‘This is a cup game, I’m going to rest players’.

"We’ll be going with the mentality that it’s an important game.

"Every game for me is massive so I’ll not be treating this as anything different.

"I’ve not even looked at Haddington Athletic in the league at home the following Saturday.

"Our focus is on the cup game. For everybody that is fully fit and available, I’ll be picking the best team on the day.”