A home fixture against Aquinas at Blanchflower Stadium with a depleted squad due to injuries.
We travelled to Blanchflower with only twelve players but the boys were determined to get back to winning ways. We started brightly and played some good football, Aquinas also had a point to prove and they were playing well so this had the makings on a good match but unaware to both teams was that this game would be spoiled by very poor Refereeing affecting both teams and spoil a good game of football. Aquinas drew first blood when we failed to clear our lines and they scored to put us 1 : 0 down. We kept pushing but Aquinas were defending well and the first half ended with Aquinas in the lead.
Alf Time : 0 . 1
The second half saw us up our game and the boys pushed for an equaliser with Marcus Baron having the game of his life as he constantly flew up and down that left wing creating chance after chance. The game was starting to show a pattern as the Referee constantly blew his whistle and seen fit to talk to the boys at every opportunity on both teams and to be honest there was no need as this was never a dirty game. We finally got the equaliser we deserved in the 50th minute when Matthew Guest put over a corner Noah Crenshaw controlled it on his thigh and on the half volley thrashed the ball into the back of the net 1 : 1. The boys where now on the up and were pushing for the winner, Aquinas were still a thread as on several occasions Jai Sykes was called into action and pulled of some great saves to keep us in the match but the game was about to change thanks to poor Refereeing. The first instance was Aquinas winner as the ball was sent forward the Aquinas player was clearly 2 yards offside, Robbie was in line with play and called for it the Referee put his whistle to his mouth but decided to let it go and Aquinas scored to go 2 : 1 up with 10 minutes left. Then came the worst decision I have ever seen in my days as a Referee, when Matthew Guest was late with a tackle the ref gave a free kick, as it happened near us I went over to help the child whilst his coach made his way over, words were exchanged between Matthew and the coach but the Referee seen fit to threaten Matthew by saying “ if you don’t apologises to their coach I will issue you with a yellow card” upon this Matthew apologised but when the Referee then turned round and issued Matthew with a straight red card which had us all confused on the reason why ????? So the match was all but over as the boys where so angry and frustrated with a very poor Referee.
Full Time : 1 . 2
After the match we asked the Referee for clarity on why he issued a straight red card his answer to this was for Decent ??????????? in all my days as a referee this was certainly a strange one as in the laws of the game decent is a yellow card offence and at no time was Matthew foil or abusive towards him so in my eye it was just another bad decision.
The Referee did ask to see us afterwards at the changing rooms and rescinded the red card and replaced it with a yellow, didn’t help us though in the match as we were pressing for an equaliser at the time.
Managers Comments:
Well done boys some good football play in an eventful match. Also thanks to Aquinas for a good match and good sportsmanship.
