PARTICK THISTLE manager Alan Archibald has revealed that his club have still to receive any explanation from the Scottish Football Association over the ‘goal’ that wasn’t awarded to them in last weekend’s win over Morton.

The club’s footage of Kris Doolan’s strike has been viewed almost a million times online, with referee Barry Cook and his assistant referees failing to spot that the ball had hit the back of the net before rebounding back out and being thumped into touch by a Morton defender.

A throw-in to Thistle was the eventual decision given, much to the amazement of Archibald and the vast majority of those inside Firhill.

The club have written to the SFA seeking an explanation of how the officials arrived at their verdict, but Archibald says they have yet to receive any clarification from the governing body.

“The incident is such a huge talking point and such an obvious error that it deserves some sort of explanation,” Archibald said.

“There are about 30 incidents every Saturday that managers could cast up and phone referees about. I’ve never phoned them once in the last five and a half years, but it might have been nice to have some sort of explanation. Our players deserve that.

“I’m not looking for anyone to be punished for it, we just feel we deserve an explanation of how it happened, and we should have some clarity of how the decision was made.

“We wrote a letter away on Wednesday to look for answers and they got back to say the referees are speaking about it and will get back to us. There was no indication of when.

“They said they are going to have a meeting about it, but surely it can be addressed before then and they can give us a little bit of communication.

“They make us go to their meeting at the start of every season to explain the new rules to us and they say they are approachable, but things like this don’t do their reputation any good.

“I wasn’t looking for an apology. I think once in five years I’ve had a referee put his hands up and say he got a decision wrong.

“We all make mistakes, I’ve made lots of them and so have our players, but I’ve got to explain it to two of my players who were booked for dissent, and Kris Doolan has lost his goal too.”

Archibald felt particularly sorry for his striker Doolan, who has yet to get off the mark this season.

The club did however honour his goal bonus, with the forward donating the money to the Beatson Cancer Charity.

Archibald said: “I saw the net move, so I sat down and said to Scott Paterson it was great for Dools.

“He had been one on one at Stranraer and was brought down for a free-kick and so never got his goal, and then he had slashed at one from two yards out before putting that one in the top corner.

“I really feel for him.”

Although Archibald isn’t looking for recriminations for the officials over the incident, he did concede that his mood on the day wasn’t helped by the stand-side assistant admonishing him afterwards for a relatively minor infraction.

“I was quite calm because we won the game, but if we hadn’t, it might have been a different story,” he said.

“It was more Kenny Arthur that was getting involved rather than me, but then I got a warning from the linesman because he wouldn’t let our sub on because a bit of his white sock was showing!

“I thought: ‘You’ve got the audacity to say that when you’ve just missed a goal?’

“Some things are more important than white ankle socks.”