Today's Officials

[Medway Blue]

I was in utter disbelief yesterday. I saw the McCormack and Francis incidents clear as a bell. BOTH red card offences, as was the elbow from the lump who busted Matty Harrold's nose. No joke here, but I don't think I've ever been bristling with fury as much as I was at the end of that game - a flipping game of football getting me that angry. I wanted to run on and rearrange the faces of each of those f@cking sh*t officials.

Something has to be done. Now. These officials are ruining football matches. Video refs are needed badly in situations such as the 4 incidents that caused the outrage today. Yes it'll slow the game down a bit, but I'd rather have that than injustice.....

Time as well for those tight fisted cretins at Soho Square to splash the cash on improving the performance of officials. A complete overhaul of the refereeing level exams and courses are needed. It appears too easy for complete dross like the **** we saw yesterday to become referees, so something obviously needs to be done to improve the quality of examiners and to increase the difficulty of the level exams. Surely that will improve quality. Failing that, create an assessment division - 3 assessors sent out to every league game, one assessor for each official. Notes should be taken and overall marks awarded. If a referee fails to achieve a 7/10 or over, he should get an automatic ban for 2 or 3 matches, just like a player does if he commits an offence. After 5 bans, the referee gets shipped out of football league refereeing and into the Conference. I know it sounds a little extreme, but something radical needs to be done about the standard of refereeing, because there idiots ruin football matches and turn them into infuriating and stressful hotpots.

 

[JoshC]

The problem for the ref in the Macca and Francis incidents is that he was facing the other way, its all down to the linesmen who were awful today. Anyone remember the incident last season in a game between i think Arsenal and Liverpool where a player went in for a block, clearly slipped and knocked the player over, the crowd went crazy, the ref turned around to see the player on the floor injured and sent the bloke who slipped off.

I was sure Owuso had a heart problem, he just collapsed and was clutching his chest it looked very serious for a moment. Would love to know what happened there.

 

[Kristof]

All three were just awful.

As the song goes, MR Singh the other week apart. "We always get s**t refs"

 

[Southminster_Shrimper]

The problem for the ref in the Macca and Francis incidents is that he was facing the other way, its all down to the linesmen who were awful today. Anyone remember the incident last season in a game between i think Arsenal and Liverpool where a player went in for a block, clearly slipped and knocked the player over, the crowd went crazy, the ref turned around to see the player on the floor injured and sent the bloke who slipped off.

I was sure Owuso had a heart problem, he just collapsed and was clutching his chest it looked very serious for a moment. Would love to know what happened there.

Yes he did look in some bother. Unless I mistook who came on to attend to him but I reckon it was Stanners.....if it was wtf were the Yeovil muppets doing! Ar5ing about trying to get someone else sent off probably.

Cant have been that serious cos he got up and walked off a short time afterwards and then carried on playing. It did look serious for a time tho. Not that you would have guessed by all the concern from those Yeovil kn0bs.

 

[C C Csiders]

I too thought Owusu had had a heart attack, and it seemed that his tongue was being pulled out by the Yeovil physio. I suspect he had a seizure after realising he had scored with the weakest sht in the history of football.

The officials were a disgrace. The highlight of the game for me was seeing Peter Clarke conduct the crowd to up the chant of "You don't know what you're doing"

 

[Flaiming Moe]

Without a shadow of a doubt, that had to be the worst performance of any match officials I have ever witnessed.


Marcus Stewart: on 3 seperate occassions the guy could and should have been given a straight red for crude lunges and a stamp.

Matt Harrold: This guy deserves some luck, he worked his backside off all game long, the first booking was so laughable as the ref accused him of using his arm in an aerial challenge. But for the second booking the ref seemed satisfied with the challenge at first and even the linesman didn't wave his flag, however one the away support had given him 20 seconds of abuse and the advances of Skiverton, he suddenly started flagging. Talk about peer group pressure.

Owusu - what a total clown of a footballer, the dissent shown to the ref and linesman deserved a card in itself, his oscar-winning fall was also worthy of another card, and was I the only one who spotted his two-footed lunge on Clarke just before half-time

The ref lost the game in the opening 15 minutes, when Bircham and Harrold both suffered facial injuries and the ref needed prompting that the players were injured.

Awareness 0/10
Control 0/10
Overall Performance 0/10

 

[madaboutblues]

Yes he did look in some bother. Unless I mistook who came on to attend to him but I reckon it was Stanners.....if it was wtf were the Yeovil muppets doing! Ar5ing about trying to get someone else sent off probably.

Cant have been that serious cos he got up and walked off a short time afterwards and then carried on playing. It did look serious for a time tho. Not that you would have guessed by all the concern from those Yeovil kn0bs.

It was Stannard that attended to Owusu as the Yeovil physio was with the goalie.

 

[shrimper dan]

what i dont understand is why does the ref have to come over to look at the player before letting the physio on. francis looked quite clearly hurt and clarky is waving frantically for stanard to come on but yet the ref has to make sure he is hurt. this happened a few time through the game. i wish i were in the tunnel at the end of the game to hear what brush said to him because i doubt it was very friendly. reminded me of the barsnley game 2 seasons ago at their place, brush ran to the ref when the whistle went and followed him all the way to the tunnell. people may moan about trevor kettle but the ref today made kettle look good. completly lost the plot

 

[Mick]

Fifteen months (and two Harrold League goals) ago, Harrold made a clumsy challenge on the Ipswich goalkeeper who had to leave the field in the 8th minute. Referee in charge that day, Mr Penton.

Perhaps the officials were being extra vigilant, hence seeing something that didn't happen ? ...... (as opposed to spending the rest of the game not seeing things which did happen.)

 

[Suffolk Blue]

Add to the major incidents, the countless times that completely cynical fouls were committed to break up our attacks with no cards; the number 5 commited about 6 of them on his own.

Also I couldn't believe the ref took no action at two of our free-kicks; the first where Owusu ran from behind Macca and jumped over the ball as he took the kick (which ended up going sideways into the West), then allowing their player (the sub, Williams?) to stand abour 3 yards behind the ball and run in as the kicker did so that he couldn't have been more than 2 yards away when the kick was taken. I suppose he did book Owusu when he stood on the ball as we were about to take another free kick but he let far too much go in my opinion and was never really in control of the game.

 

[Bentley's Absurd Gait]

Obviously the home crowd is not going to be a faultlessly accurate barometer of the officials' performance, but I think the mood in the West Stand on saturday was the angriest it's been this season, beating the previous best of the Orient game. My seat is pretty much level with where the lino was standing when he shrugged his shoulders after Francis was assaulted, and I quite fancied lumbering on and giving him a piece of my mind, which is most unlike me, I haven't been on the pitch since Derby 1994.