Ref-ing Mad? Well Now You Can Do Something About It!

Another shocking refereeing performance is a 'handy' excuse when your down the pub with your pals, after your team has lost, but as handy as it may be, nowadays it has become a more regular & genuine cause for complaint amongst almost ALL football supporters.

Now YOU can do something about it! And shortly I will tell you how!

Why would you want to bother in the first place I can hear you saying?
What difference will it make?
You can't change the result?
You can't get the game replayed?

Last Saturday I was at Selhurst Park to watch my team play host to Ipswich Town in a Championship League game. The 4-1 reverse suggests Palace were well beaten BUT the performance of the referee Mr. Penton from Sussex was awful, dire, atrocious, diabolical, calamitous........the list of expletives could go on & on!

Now I realize every supporter of every football club has got MANY a hard luck story they could instantly recall if asked, that involved a refereeing decision that changed a game, cost your team points, perhaps promotion or relegation, even administration!

To swallow these travesties of justice can take some doing as a fan & I am simply pointing out a recent one that affected me & more importantly MY club!

In just 90 minutes the referee awarded Ipswich a free-kick following a clean ball winning tackle made by a Palace defender that Town scored directly from, a second goal that looked suspiciously offside, a third goal where during the build up the ball quite clearly went out of play & the resulting cross led to a goal. And to put the icing on the cake, at 2-1 down Palace midfielder Nicky Carle was unceremoniously tripped from behind in the penalty box. A penalty & a red card should have ensued, but nothing was given.
Sound familiar?

To emphasise the point here are a small selection of comments left by Palace supporters on the messageboard of their own fans website holmesdale.net following the game.
(Warning: Some strong language now follows!)


'Over and above the fact that the team were utterly devoid of any creation or desire yesterday, the ref was totally shocking. It took him 5 minutes to decide we'd actually scored (because he was no where near the play), he missed the penalty and several other decisions were so blatantly wrong even some of the players from both teams were left scratching their heads. The man was a joke.'

'The game is rotten to the core. Decisions can't be challenged, speaking out brings charges of bringing the game into disrepute, rules are openly flouted with impunity and criticism is silenced.
Football is f*cked, my friends. Get used to it.'

'Mr Penton is clearly a blind, incompetent w**ker who shouldn't be let loose on an under 7's game, let alone an important match like yesterday's. The tackle on Carle was one of the most blatant penalties I've ever seen in 35 years of watching football and, in the context of the game, robbed us of at least a point.
As others have said and I commented at the time, the defender should also have walked, which would have given us a great chance of what seemed like, at 2-0 down, an unlikely win.
And as Lombardo said, it was a fantastic move which deserved a goal at the end of it. I hope Mr Penton is happy with his act of daylight robbery, the useless pri*k.'

'A couple of weeks ago I saw the worst penalty in 40 years of watching football that was given against Exeter v Brentford. Amazing how, for such a culturally important sport not to mention the thin line between success and failure, that decisions rest with one man who hasn't even played the f*cking game.'

'Thing that annoyed me about it was the fact he gave them a freekick, which resulted in their first goal, when Clint Hill slid in from behind and clearly got the ball. Yet when an Ipswich player slides in from behind and clearly doesn't get the ball, we get f**k all. Can't help but think if it was outside the box he would have given it as a foul.'

'By the way did anyone notice that on their 3rd goal the ball CLEARLY went out for a throw in right next to the linesman but he did not see it!! Really annoyed cos otherwise we could have continued to fight back...'


So there we have it..........a group of very unhappy fans!

Now here is what WE as football supporters can do in an effort to clean up the game. We exercise OUR rights & using the particular example described above, do so by demanding that all match officials:

* Meet a standard above & beyond the current one in place.
* That they should be held accountable for their errors of judgement.
* That they should have to stand up & explain the reasons behind their decisions.
* And if necessary introduce new technology, if it will help cut out some of the
abysmal errors of judgement that occur, all too frequently week in, week out.

Now you & I know that this is not going to happen because of a few dodgy decisions made by a Sussex official in South London on a wet afternoon in January. Yes, you can write to the Football Association & complain, but I know you will be lucky to get your grievance even acknowledged.

However, The Independent Football Commission(IFC) was for six years (2002-08) an integral part of football’s self-regulatory system.
The IFC has now closed & has been replaced by the Independent Football Ombudsman (IFO).

The Independent Football Ombudsman was established at the beginning of the 2008-09 season & has a clear remit to receive & adjudicate on complaints from football supporters & participants which have not been resolved by the football authorities, and to raise any policy issues which have been highlighted by those complaints, directly with The FA, Premier League & The Football League.
The creation of an Ombudsman will maintain a position as the independent and final arbiter of football complaints.

Here is a piece of text from their website regarding complaints:

The IFO is the final stage on complaints involving customer issues. An individual, a group of individuals or an organisation who feels aggrieved at the service received from a provider should, in the first instance, take that complaint to the provider. That will usually be the football club which provided the service, but it could be one of the Football Authorities if they were responsible for the service (for example, the FA in the case of England matches).

Each club and each Authority has a customer charter which should explain how a complaint can be registered and how it will be dealt with. If the service complained of rests with a club and it fails to satisfy the complainant, then the complainant can revert to the appropriate Football Authority (for example, to the Premier League if a Premier League club is the subject of the complaint). If, thereafter, the complainant remains dissatisfied, he or she can appeal to the IFO. In addition, if the relevant Football Authority has not responded substantively to a complaint within six weeks of receiving it, the Authority will either refer the matter to the IFO for consideration or will explain to the IFO why further time is required to deal with the matter.

Where the IFO receives a complaint prematurely, ie where it has not gone through the earlier stages described above, the IFO will refer such complaints to the relevant body for consideration.

I am bringing this to the attention of ALL football fans fed up with ANY aspect of 'the beautiful game.'
If enough supporters took the time to air their grievances to the IFO then maybe, just maybe they will be forced to review the complaint in question, whatever that may be!

If 'X' number of thousands of supporters stood up for change then perhaps something might be done. Don't just air your issue(s) with your pals, on messageboards or keep it to yourself.......write a short paragraph on the subject (be it referees, ticket prices, stadium facilities......etc) in the 'complaints' section on the IFO's website.

Here is the link to the site & good luck!
Link

Remember, football needs football fans. Without us there would be no game in it's current format. Clubs would go out of business, it would become a semi-professional game at best, supporters would lose interest, people would lose their jobs.
It's time for the supporters to have their say & help make a difference.

The 'Goal' That Never Was & The Top 5 'Genuinely Good Goals' That Got Away!

As the shenanigans of 'The Stuart Atwell Circus' left Watford this weekend, Steve Coppell the Reading manager has renewed the campaign for video technology, after blundering officials awarded his team a 'phantom' goal during their fixture with Watford at the weekend (20 September 2008).

Coppell was as puzzled as Watford manager Adrian Boothroyd, the players and the fans when the officials awarded Reading a goal after the ball clearly went wide in Saturday's 2-2 draw at Vicarage Road in their Championship League clash.

While they were waiting to see whether the officials would give either a corner or a goal kick, they were amazed when referee Stuart Atwell awarded Reading a goal after after he received a signal from his linesman Nigel Bannister, indicating that a goal had been scored. This put Reading one up.

'I was in the stand at the time and I haven't seen it since. But when the whistle went I wondered what it was for as I couldn't see a foul,' Coppell said. 'Everyone trooped back to the centre and then it became obvious that the referee had given the goal. But after speaking to Noel Hunt after the game it became clear that the ball went out of play wide of the goal.'

Coppell said the incidents strengthened the argument for the introduction of cameras and goal-line technology to help officials decide whether the ball had gone into the net and crossed the goalline.

But he dismissed the suggestion that, after realizing the officials' blunder, Reading should have then let Watford equalize.

'Let's get this clear. The responsibility is not with the opposition to right a wrong,' he said. 'It is up to the officials to get it as right as they can.'

Boothroyd said it appeared the mistake was by the linesman rather than the referee.

'I've never seen anything like it. It's like a UFO landing, a mistake like that,' he said. 'I've been to see the referee and, in fairness, he's only going on what the linesman says. He's working in a team and if someone comes in his ear telling him it's a goal then I suppose he's got to give it.'

Watch it here:
Link

There is a growing list of instances where the wrong call has been made over whether
the ball did or did not cross the line and here are some of the most famous genuinely good goals that got away.....!


1/ Clive Allen - Coventry v Crystal Palace, September 1980.

Allen, playing for Palace in those days, collected a free-kick passed square to him by Gerry Francis and lashed it goalwards, the ball arrowing into the far corner of the net. Only this thunderbolt hit the stanchion behind the goal & rebounded out with such ferocity that the referee did not even see that it had gone a good three feet over the line.

'They called my free-kick at Coventry the goal that never was & soon after that they got rid of the stanchion at the back of the net,' Allen said. 'We were 2-1 down at the time so it would have been an equaliser — but we lost 3-1. We went on a bad run after that & that certainly contributed.'

2/ Pedro Mendes - Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur, January 2005.

Tottenham were holding United to a goalless draw at Old Trafford with just over a minute to go. Roy Carroll raced from his goal in an attempt to pump the ball back into the Tottenham penalty area, but after a bit of head tennis the ball fell to Pedro Mendes some six yards inside the halfway line. Spotting Carroll haring back towards his own goal he let fly. The goalkeeper regained his ground in time to make what should have been a routine catch, but inexplicably spilled the ball behind him, where it bounced once before he scooped it back out, the ball having been an estimated two feet behind the line.
'Carroll has been denied the most embarrassing moment of his career, that is a travesty,' said commentator Alan Parry at the time.
It certainly is a decision that Mark Clattenburg, the referee & in particular Rob Lewis, his linesman, will want to forget.

3/ Jonathan Howard - Middlesbrough v Chesterfield, April 1997.

Chesterfield, of Division Two, looking to cause a huge upset, raced into a two-goal lead in this famous FA Cup semi-final at Old Trafford. Still ahead 2-1 and trying to weather a comeback from Middlesbrough, Jonathan Howard appeared to have given them some breathing room when he fired a shot that rebounded down off the crossbar. David Elleray, the referee, was unsighted and did not award a goal, though replays later showed it was several inches over the line. The match ended 3-3 with Middlesbrough winning the replay 3-0.

4/ Tommy Black - Crystal Palace v Leeds United, February 2003.

Trevor Francis, the then Crystal Palace manager, was absolutely livid when referee Dermot Gallagher disallowed a Tommy Black ‘goal’ that would have given his side a 2-1lead over Leeds United in an FA Cup fifth-round tie at Selhurst Park. Gallagher decided the ball had not crossed the line, but again replays proved otherwise & what made it even more galling for Palace was that Michael Duberry, the Leeds defender, actually clawed the ball back into play using his hand. The visitors went on to give Terry Venables an undeserved 2-1 victory on his return to a former stomping ground.

5/ Gerry Taggart - Bolton Wanderers v Everton, September 1997.

Bolton were denied their first ever victory in the Reebok Stadium when Stephen Lodge, the referee, failed to spot Gerry Taggart’s looping header fall six inches behind the line, before it was cleared by defender Terry Phelan. The match finished goalless, and the two sides finished level on points at the end of the season. Bolton were relegated on goal difference, whilst Everton stayed up.