The Referee

Following on from missing the previous weekend with a hamstring injury, i went in to this weekends game coming out of man flu.   To be honest though I didnt feel to bad and was happy to take control of the Loughborugh vs Biddulph fixture in the MFA.

In recent weeks time seems to have slipped away very quick so I made a point of getting there 1.5hrs before as I do on the Contrib.  I asked my assistants to be there for 1:45 to give us time to have a cup of tea and gossip, pre match and warm-up with out rushing.  One did get there as asked the other didnt.   As it happened I got out for a brief warm up but wasn’t to happy about that.

Less than 5 minutes into the game and I had to award a penalty to Loughborugh.  As there attacker was running in the box he was checked and lost his footing.    Biddulph weren’t happy as you can imagine and their keeper saved.       After 20 minutes I had to issue my first caution for a late challenge by a Biddulph attacker.    

Biddulph were less happy when after 25 minutes Loughborugh scored.    It was felt that the attacker pushed the defender in the back, from the angle I had i couldnt tell and didn’t believe this was the case so goal stood. 

My standing as public enemy number 1 increased when Biddulph felt they should have had a penalty as they felt it was identical to the Loughborugh one.   While I can see their point I belive they were very different incidents and also in different situations.    The Loughborugh one came from a player running into the area and so focus is on that.  In the Biddulph one it was during a corner and the penalty area was as you can imagine very busy and so focus was in multiple area’s.

We had played less than 5 minutes of the 2nd half and Loughborugh had another penalty appeal.    I couldnt see on this as I was looking through to many players, I checked over at my assistant and he said no penalty.   I had a need to caution a Loughborugh player for a late challenge out on the touchline but apart from that not a lot else happened during the second half as Loughborugh held out for a 1-0 win.