Ref Watch ........ Portsmouth H

[Mick]

Our first referee of the New Year is Dave Phillips from Chichester in West Sussex, refereeing his tenth Southend match in his sixth season as a League referee.

His first Southend match was Huddersfield at home five years ago (lost 1-0), second was away ay Yeovil four years ago (lost again, sent off Morrison) and then the same season at home to Swindon (2-2). That last game he did well and was hardly noticed. His next visit was the match against Bristol City three years ago, where, once again, he did well and again was hardly noticed despite half a dozen cards and then again as a late replacement for the same season's home match against Barnet (won 2-1).

Now we come to a very poor home match, the season before last's game against Gillingham when his namesake popped up with a late winner. A reasonable first half gave no clues as to the abject nature of his second half performance that was to follow, half a dozen yellows and a red for Mohsni (not his worst decision, nor as bad as Sturrock's decision not to take him off).

His most recent Southend away game was the year before last's 1-0 JPT victory at Oxford when he managed 5 yellows and 3 reds (Grant for us and a couple of theirs including the keeper). Hall scored the winner.

Next came last season's comfortable win over Dagenham on our march towards Wembley. Good performance all round - players and official. And finally, also last year, the home draw with Torquay when all 4 yellows went to the visitors.

He started his League career at an older age than most and is a Police Officer in his late 40s. His season's card count is average with 45 yellows and 4 reds from 13 low-scoring games (no team has yet scored more than 2 goals in his matches this season).

Assistants are John Busby from Oxford and Mark Mellor (again) from Hemel Hempstead. Constantine Hatzidakis from Bromley (who some will remember as the over-active linesman from Wycombe away earlier this season), is 4th Official.

 

[jaffa1]

Hmmm, Chichester is a mere 17 miles from Portsmouth....

 

[borientater]

Perhaps he will travel on their team bus then

 

[IloveShrimp]

Hmmm, Chichester is a mere 17 miles from Portsmouth....

just what I as thinking

 

[dannypav]

Hmmm, Chichester is a mere 17 miles from Portsmouth....

It's when he heads in the winner at the far post that you need to have concerns..............

 

[Mick]

Hmmm, Chichester is a mere 17 miles from Portsmouth....

If he favours Portsmouth, he's not doing a very good job of it; last time he reffed them, they lost at home to Colchester !

 

[borientater]

Essex boy at heart

 

[Massimo Giovanni]

This ref had a good game, I liked the way he spoke with Barry and also how he explained what he saw on a 50/50 that PB disagreed with.
This is odd, 2 reasonable ref displays in the last 2 games!

 

[Fish]

This ref had a good game, I liked the way he spoke with Barry and also how he explained what he saw on a 50/50 that PB disagreed with.
This is odd, 2 reasonable ref displays in the last 2 games!

LIkewise, I thought he handled the game well, though with one exception. When Their #9 had scythed through White (or was it Phillips?) in front of the West Stand, he played advantage when our player was clearly not getting up, and therefore couldn't contribute to our attack down that side of the pitch (e.g. he couldn't pop a cross in for us, etc).

Furthermore, had possession been turned over, they would have broken down that side of the pitch with us a man down, due to a foul he ultimately went back and carded for.

 

[dannypav]

I thought the ref did well but the lino in front of East Reds / Yellows was awful.

 

[londonblue]

LIkewise, I thought he handled the game well, though with one exception. When Their #9 had scythed through White (or was it Phillips?) in front of the West Stand, he played advantage when our player was clearly not getting up, and therefore couldn't contribute to our attack down that side of the pitch (e.g. he couldn't pop a cross in for us, etc).

Furthermore, had possession been turned over, they would have broken down that side of the pitch with us a man down, due to a foul he ultimately went back and carded for.

I personally thought he handled that very well. We were clearly on the attack and he waived play on.

I also thought he did very well, and feel he made only one minor mistake. There was an incident where pompey had the ball and we fouled one of their players. He correctly waived play on, but when pompey played the ball backwards he brought the play back for the free kick. Surely that's their problem? If they choose not to take advantage of the advantage I don't think the ref should the stop the game.

 

[Cockle43]

Thought he handled the advantage pretty well throughout, with the one exception of the scything in front of the West, allowing play to continue but as soon as any advantage started to fade bringing it back in a timely manner to the original offence.

I thought the scything in front of the West could well have got a straight red on another day.

Also passed on two very good penalty shouts, one in the first half when Prosser seemed to do a Superman impression and pretty much punched the ball away from a cross near the penalty spot, second, which I suppose evened it up, in the second half when one of their defenders pretty much batted down a cross from, IIRC Coker, definite arm to ball in both cases.

Seemed to handle the game well by communicating to the players, quite refreshing really; much better than some of the little dictators we seem to see so much of, would imagine he gets a lot more respect from the players for that approach.

 

[Shrimpergonzo]

Compared with the normal standard of League 2 refs, I thought he was pretty decent. Not 100% right, but then not many of the prem. refs I see on MotD are perfect either, so no real complaints from me as he got most of the decisions correct most of the time and seemed to ref by communicating rather than dishing out cards like confetti.