Smith hasn't been involved in any of our games since the opening day of the season at Parkhead. Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Will Haining went for the ball, the Celtic player tugged our defender and then went down. For some reason, Smith deemed this to be worthy of a penalty for Celtic - which they scored - and he also sent Haining off. This followed a game against Celtic at Love Street last year, when he decided Shunsuke Nakamura had been fouled by Gary Mason. He gave the decision the other way - and Nakamura scored the free-kick. In amongst that is a game at Caley Thistle that finished goalless, although Craig Dargo did get kicked all over the park that day. In fairness, he did send David Proctor off for his troubles. Other games that season were a goalless draw at Kilmarnock and a 1-0 defeat to Motherwell at Love Street on the opening day of a season.
We may have failed to score in the last five games involving Mr Smith, but the good news is he was in charge when we drew 1-1 at Ibrox in late 2006 - the same result onm Wednesday would be handy! That season there was also a loss to Aberdeen but a fine win over Motherwell.
Going back to the first division days, Mr Smith did two of our games in 05/06. One was a terrible draw with Stranraer early in the season, while the other was a 2-0 win at Ross County. Apparently, he threatened to abandon that game because some of our fans were tugging on the net - he really doesn't like us, doesn't he? The previous season saw his first encounter with Saints when we beat Queen of the South 3-0 at Love Street. Amusingly, they had to play most of the game with an outfield player in goals after we crocked their normal keeper and the sub goalie in the space of five minutes. Worryingly, we were 2-0 up by this point and only got the third in stoppage time after some nerve wracking moments!
Mr Smith's games with Rangers this season do not suggest the Celtic bias he has shown when he takes charge of Saints. In four games, Rangers have beaten Motherwell, Hamilton, Kilmarnock and Forfar, with a Forfar player also being shown a red card. Aside from the draw with Saints mentioned above, the only other Rangers games Mr Smith has done are a 4-1 win over Livingston in 2005/06 and a 7-2 mauling of Falkirk last season. I would say that scoreline could be repeated on Wednesday, but I can't really see us scoring twice!
This season, Mr Smith has shown five red cards in 31 games. He hasn't shown one in his last five matches, so he's overdue. Will he make us hate him even more by dismissing a man in black and white on Wednesday night?