Don't blame the ref........
30 January 2004, 11:36 AM
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Interesting article.....
The Thursday Column: My plea for 2004 - stop slaughtering the referees for each and every mistake
Published: 01/01/2004 (Sports Betting) Bruce Millington
SLIPPING on a banana skin. Stepping in dog **** and treading it into your girlfriend's parents' carpet. Trying to have pounds 3 on a rag at 100 on Betfair and having pounds 100 at 3 instead. Making the vicar a cup of coffee when he asked for tea. Conceiving a child at the age of 47.
Which of us has not made at least one of these genuine mistakes on our journey through life? (if you have made all of them, preferably on the same day, please drop me a line - I need reassurance that there are people less fortunate than me right now.)
Being more specific to the point I am making, I give you choosing the wrong boots, coming for a cross when you have no chance of reaching it, getting too tight to the man you are marking so he turns you and has an uninterrupted run on goal, playing a high-risk cross-field pass and conceding possession in a dangerous area, trying a volley when a diving header would have resulted in a near-certain goal, and failing to detect that the defender's boot made contact with the ball just before his trailing leg took the striker's feet away.
The odd one out among those errors? The last one, of course. A player can make any of the others without his manager breathing a word about it afterwards, whereas if a ref gets a hairline decision wrong we never hear the last of it.
It happened again over Christmas. Players were doing the wrong thing left, right and centre, yet all the losing managers wanted to talk about afterwards was how the ref had got it wrong.
Even worse, Radio 5 Live gathered a studio full of veteran sports broadcasters (Dickie Davies, Jimmy Hill, etc) and got them to discuss various football topics.
When it came to pet hates, one piped up: "Referees. Quite simply, they should be better."
There were murmurs of general agreement.
Nobody asked what struck me as the obvious question: why?
Why should they be better? In what way should they function more effectively than they do now? Should they be able to keep up with play better? Should their eyesight be sharper, enabling them to assess situations more accurately?
If so, whose fault is that? God's, for not designing humans to a sufficiently high-quality specification?
It amazes me that so few people seem able to accept that refereeing is an incredibly hard skill, and that mistakes are an inevitability.
Sir Alex Ferguson, never one to hold back when an official incurs his displeasure by daring to dismiss one of his players or award a penalty against United, summed up the general attitude of intolerance towards the men in black when declaring at the weekend: "Decision-making is an important part of the referee's job, and he has got to get it right."
Sorry, Fergie, but it is simply not possible to get every single decision right (you only have to look at all the perfectly valid penalty claims on behalf of visiting teams that are turned down at Old Trafford to know that).
Even Pierluigi Collina, ludicrously awarded an honorary doctorate by some insignificant, publicity-hungry provincial English university this week, has been known to get it wrong.
Football is too quick for one man to be able to control it without him ever making incorrect decisions. That is a fact.
Those that fail to accept this should be made to referee a match. They would soon realise how unjust it is to play blame the arbiter.
I do not like each and every top-rank English ref. Graham Poll strikes me as a self-important twerp from the same school of `I'm a star, not just a humble official' as Dickie Bird.
And Mark Halsey revealed the other day that Tainted Love by Soft Cell and Gabrielle's Dreams are among his three favourite songs.
But that does not make them unfit to referee at the highest level. Halsey, along with Alan Wiley, is probably the best ref on the Premiership roster. And they all seem to be performing better now that they are no longer fearfully operating under the beady eye of Philip Don.
I have many wishes for the new year. That Gordon Taylor never appears on my TV or radio. That someone at The Sun wakes up one day and realises that they don't need to tarnish their otherwise excellent football coverage by continuing to run the lamentable `Ebeneezer The Soccer Geezer' column. That late goals in matches I have bet on go for me rather than against me. That half-time is cut to ten minutes.
But, above all, I yearn for a ban on public criticism of referees. It is boring and, more often than not, a cowardly attempt to dupe supporters into thinking their team lost for reasons other than player or manager incompetence.
Something has to be done. The number of people taking up refereeing is dropping alarmingly. The future of the game at all levels is under threat thanks to a bunch of loudmouth managers who must learn to accept that refs are humans, not robots.
The Thursday Column: My plea for 2004 - stop slaughtering the referees for each and every mistake
Published: 01/01/2004 (Sports Betting) Bruce Millington
SLIPPING on a banana skin. Stepping in dog **** and treading it into your girlfriend's parents' carpet. Trying to have pounds 3 on a rag at 100 on Betfair and having pounds 100 at 3 instead. Making the vicar a cup of coffee when he asked for tea. Conceiving a child at the age of 47.
Which of us has not made at least one of these genuine mistakes on our journey through life? (if you have made all of them, preferably on the same day, please drop me a line - I need reassurance that there are people less fortunate than me right now.)
Being more specific to the point I am making, I give you choosing the wrong boots, coming for a cross when you have no chance of reaching it, getting too tight to the man you are marking so he turns you and has an uninterrupted run on goal, playing a high-risk cross-field pass and conceding possession in a dangerous area, trying a volley when a diving header would have resulted in a near-certain goal, and failing to detect that the defender's boot made contact with the ball just before his trailing leg took the striker's feet away.
The odd one out among those errors? The last one, of course. A player can make any of the others without his manager breathing a word about it afterwards, whereas if a ref gets a hairline decision wrong we never hear the last of it.
It happened again over Christmas. Players were doing the wrong thing left, right and centre, yet all the losing managers wanted to talk about afterwards was how the ref had got it wrong.
Even worse, Radio 5 Live gathered a studio full of veteran sports broadcasters (Dickie Davies, Jimmy Hill, etc) and got them to discuss various football topics.
When it came to pet hates, one piped up: "Referees. Quite simply, they should be better."
There were murmurs of general agreement.
Nobody asked what struck me as the obvious question: why?
Why should they be better? In what way should they function more effectively than they do now? Should they be able to keep up with play better? Should their eyesight be sharper, enabling them to assess situations more accurately?
If so, whose fault is that? God's, for not designing humans to a sufficiently high-quality specification?
It amazes me that so few people seem able to accept that refereeing is an incredibly hard skill, and that mistakes are an inevitability.
Sir Alex Ferguson, never one to hold back when an official incurs his displeasure by daring to dismiss one of his players or award a penalty against United, summed up the general attitude of intolerance towards the men in black when declaring at the weekend: "Decision-making is an important part of the referee's job, and he has got to get it right."
Sorry, Fergie, but it is simply not possible to get every single decision right (you only have to look at all the perfectly valid penalty claims on behalf of visiting teams that are turned down at Old Trafford to know that).
Even Pierluigi Collina, ludicrously awarded an honorary doctorate by some insignificant, publicity-hungry provincial English university this week, has been known to get it wrong.
Football is too quick for one man to be able to control it without him ever making incorrect decisions. That is a fact.
Those that fail to accept this should be made to referee a match. They would soon realise how unjust it is to play blame the arbiter.
I do not like each and every top-rank English ref. Graham Poll strikes me as a self-important twerp from the same school of `I'm a star, not just a humble official' as Dickie Bird.
And Mark Halsey revealed the other day that Tainted Love by Soft Cell and Gabrielle's Dreams are among his three favourite songs.
But that does not make them unfit to referee at the highest level. Halsey, along with Alan Wiley, is probably the best ref on the Premiership roster. And they all seem to be performing better now that they are no longer fearfully operating under the beady eye of Philip Don.
I have many wishes for the new year. That Gordon Taylor never appears on my TV or radio. That someone at The Sun wakes up one day and realises that they don't need to tarnish their otherwise excellent football coverage by continuing to run the lamentable `Ebeneezer The Soccer Geezer' column. That late goals in matches I have bet on go for me rather than against me. That half-time is cut to ten minutes.
But, above all, I yearn for a ban on public criticism of referees. It is boring and, more often than not, a cowardly attempt to dupe supporters into thinking their team lost for reasons other than player or manager incompetence.
Something has to be done. The number of people taking up refereeing is dropping alarmingly. The future of the game at all levels is under threat thanks to a bunch of loudmouth managers who must learn to accept that refs are humans, not robots.
02 February 2004, 09:39 AM
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I actually agree with a lot of what's said in the document - I especially find it hard to believe that SAF gets so excited about decisions going against Man Utd - It happens so f***ing rarely [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img].
Having said that - having a go at the ref is as much a part of football as scoring goals - It all adds to the uncertainty and excitement of the game - IMO !
Video ref and all that bull - SIUYA !
Having said that - having a go at the ref is as much a part of football as scoring goals - It all adds to the uncertainty and excitement of the game - IMO !
Video ref and all that bull - SIUYA !
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