We have a situation now where a bunch of often mega rich players are being officiated by a bunch of often incompetent referees. There is surely enough money in the game for us to recruit suitable people, pay them decent money and most of all train them professionally to understand the rules and follow them strictly. Our friend Mr. Clutterbuck or whatever totally ignored decent penalty claims on Saturday, and pulled a penalty straight out of the blue. The offence he chose to give it for was perpetrated about three times on our strikers Saturday.
When he realised that Tranmere had come only to waste time and feign injury, he only had to his yellow card to sort it out. What did he do ? He removed all the spare balls around the Ground to keep the game flowing, and promptly slowed it down. If I was a Tranmere fan I would be wearing dark glasses and a false beard today, total disgrace.
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The best way to clamp down on time wasting is to book someone as soon as they start doing it. Leaving it til injury time at the end of the game gives the team who aren't time wasting no advantage at all. The fact that he didn't book anyone for it says it all. I was also frustrated by his insistence that players had to walk to him when he wanted to talk to them, even if he was standing 2 metres away from them. Can't remember the last time I heard the whistle so much during a game.
It felt like I'd watched a 75 minute game rather than a 90 minute one.
As for the time wasting - they did it from 4 mins 36 onwards (I looked at the clock) The ref didn't stamp it out then and let it go on all game. He booked the keeper for something but then refused to book him for time wasting which he did at every opportunity. He should have gone up to him and said "last warning" and maybe he'd have got his finger out
Not only that - the injury in the first half took over 3 minutes to sort out, there were a couple of others too. Then in the second half there was time wasting galore (which the ref claimed to be stopping his watch for), 3 or 4 substitutions and a couple of other knocks so I fail to see why there was so little extra time played
It really does frustrate me and I wonder why there are not more ex players turning their hand at refereeing - or at least working with the refs
All his wistleblowing and long lectures just waste more time.
refs will always make mistakes- that isn't a critiscim - they just need to keep them down to reasonable levels and the good refs get the big calls right. Sometimes the ball goes out and the ref doesn't know who touched it last - you try reffing and you see how easy this can be - but sometimes they miss things they shouldn't miss.But one thing which they should get right and there is no excuse for getting wrong is time management.
Saturday's ref sent a clear signal to Tranmere to continuetime wasting by adding only 2 minutes to the first half when we had them wasting time from an early stage and injuries requireing treatment on the pitch. The message is, waste as much time as you like- I'll let you get away with it.
As for 4 minutes in the 2nd half - I counted over 3 minutes for the stoppage in the 80th minute up to when our 2 subs came on in the 83rd. Add to that injuries and even worse time wasting antics by Tranmere and I think the ref should be investigated - I really do. We definitely should have got at least one penalty - I'm sure lino saw a blatent shirt tug on Benson in the area by his reaction but chose to bottle it. Ultimately, I think we were knocking on the door pretty loudly and the time we were robbed off could have cost us 3 points.
Sadly the assessor is the only person in the ground he has to please. The pundits call for more consistancy all the time, the only way to ensure consistancy is with very strict "laws" (although they seem to be rules, rather than laws these days). No room for interpretation, so it's more important for them to get the technical decisions right than to allow the general spirit of the game to dictate how he/she referees the match.
It looked from where I sat that he aimed a kick at BWP
He did kick him. I couldn't believe he wasn't sent off for it!
As regards saying refs are the wrong sort of people? I have known hundreds of referees in my 8 years of being a match official (inclusing those that operate on the FL and the PL) and I can categorically say there is no one type. Every referee is different as every player or manager is different. Some show empathy, some don't. Some like to talk, some don't. Everyone is different!
I honestly think that fast tracking ex players into refereeing games would make little or no difference to the standard of refereeing. In fact I would go so far as to say it'll make it a hell of a lot worse. Stuart Atwell was fast tracked to the PL and we all know what a pig's ear he made of it. Just because a player has played the game doesn't guarantee he'll make a good referee just as ex-players do not always make good managers. Referees train for years, devote a hell of a lot of hours to training, seminars, getting to and from games to get where they are and to suggest a quick fix with ex players is a misguided. Don't forget the only professional officials are the Premier League referees. All the others have jobs just like you or I. As mentioned before I am a referee and I love the game. I didn't play the game to any great level (no higher than Sunday league) but having watched Charlton for well over 25 years I like to think I know a little bit about the game. Not just the laws but how to handle players and how the game as a whole works. I haven't played the game to any great level but does that automatically make me a bad referee? As for the pedant comment the referee needs to exert some authority. Most in the game seem to be determined to take as much authority away from referees as possible but where would that leave the game? It doesn't happen in any other sport like rugby or cricket where the referee/umpires has/have total control yet no one levels that they're arrogant?
I think the conclusion is this that match officials do their best in what I know is an extremely hard and usually thankless job (although the highs do generally outweigh the lows) and we need to help match officials see clubs work with match officals to move forward together. I simply do not see an a quick and cheap alternative.
Were you at the game?
If so how would you have marked the ref out of 10.
Quite sad
"The player was arrested and received a police caution"
Are you sure? shakes head