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Liskeard v St Blazey


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St Blazey's Phil Smith hauled down Chris Wright on his way to goal with the referee ejecting Wright a few minutes later for speaking out of turn. .

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I saw most of the second half. The referee was dead right in sending off Phil Smith as he was clean through on goal when he was brought down straight in front of me. I'm not sure what happened with Wright as it happened at the opposite end of the ground, I assume he said something to the referee to warrant him being sent off.

As far as the referee is concerned I thought he was a bit finicky but he usually is, I would have thought teams would have realised that now. His positioning was fine and most of his decisions seemed ok although he did blow to early to stop play for an infringement when the offended against team were in full flow on goal. But that happens. I suppose a 65/100 score would be ok.

What I was more concerned about was the positioning of the linesman (I say linesman because until they understand the offside law that is all they are) with the orange flag on the dug out side. We unfortunately blame referees for blowing up for offside or not when they have to rely on the linesman and they have to live with that decision. On a few occasions the linesman was hopelessly out of position when he gave what was in fact a correct decision despite being 10 yards or so ahead of the play. He then allows one offside to go unpunished when he found himself many yards behind the play which meant at his angle of vision the player was in an onside position when receiving the ball. He was then in the perfect position to allow a player who clearly ran on to a through ball past a defender to run though but for some reason he raised the flag for offside. In all these occasions there was no coming back from an offside position etc going into a second phase. Linesman should be taught to anticipate balls being played forward so they are in a position to keep up with play, also some linesman and this one in particular didn't seem to know where he should be in the first place. Ie level with the last defender or the front attacker. So referees are not always to blame.

Another pet hate is when a linesman anticipates a ball going out of play - he quickly raises his flag only to find that a player manages to keep the ball in play. This happened twice in the second half. Perhaps it’s a knee jerk reaction and a difficult thing to do to stop the flag going up so perhaps they should just allow a fraction longer to see just what did happen. We all make mistakes so can match officials.

There was also a strange incident at the Bude Town v Tavistock ECPL game yesterday. A Bude player made a bad challenge on a Tavistock player who in his anguish said something like 'for f***k sake'. The result the Bude player gets a yellow and the Tavistock player a red. And this was told to me by both teams. So what is more dangerous swearing at a player for a bad challenge or the bad challenge?

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Again I only saw the second half. Neither side was brilliant, I thought Chris Wright battled well for Liskeard. Ben Woods 30 yard strike was absolutely stunning the goalkeeper never moved. Will Tinsley looks a promising player for St Blazey and Harry Richardson and Ben Wood looked the pick for Liskard.

To be fair Liskeard should never have let slip a two goal lead. Both sides have gone through traumatic times in this last year although I am sure both will be up amongst the leaders next season.

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Lafs - As you know I was at the game and whilst I agree with ECPL that the Ref was a bit finicky, I also feel he had little alternative but to send off Smith. I feel that it wasn't the Ref at fault, it's the interpretation of the law, it really doesn't give them an alternative. I'm not convinced Smith was the last man as I feel a second green shirt was close enough to challenge although it's how the Ref saw it and he only has a split second to make his mind up. Smith had already been booked and would probably have got a second yellow if it had happened in the centre circle but because he was seemingly the last man and the Ref felt he prevented a goal scoring opportunity, it suddenly turns to red. The big problem for me is that during the full 90 plus minutes, there wasn't a bad foul that I can remember and certainly no ill feeling between the players at any stage, yet there were two players sent off - One as the last man and one for foul and abusive language.

Chris Wright of Liskeard was shown a straight red for swearing at one of his team- mates and the law states that the use of foul and abusive language should be punished by a red card. Am I right in thinking that if the law was applied correctly, every player that uses foul language should be sent off. If that was to happen there wouldn't be too many left on the field at 90 minutes in just about every game across the whole country. At the majority of games game I think I've ever been to (and that's a lot), the majority of players, subs, managers et al will at some stage will swear! Mostly from their own frustration. Do we punish someone for that? The law states :A player, substitute or substituted player is to be sent off and shown a red card if he : `uses offensive or insulting or abusive language or gestures` although many, as we know from the Premier League to the local leagues, get away with it week after week. Again the ref wasn't really at fault although if this is to be the norm, they would have to show consistency.

As for the `linesman` ECPL got that right too.

As a neutral, I thoroughly enjoyed the game. Lots of mistakes, good goalkeeping (and some not so good), chances missed at both ends, six goals and unfortunately the two red cards. Overall - a draw was probably about right although I did wonder where the ref got 6 or 7 minutes of second half `added on` time. Don't think you'll worry though, Whets scored the equaiser 5 minutes into injury time. Harvs must have felt it though.

All in all, I enjoyed it but I don't think I could be a football manager. Harvs, Philpy and you must have endured all the highs and lows of football in just one afternoon.

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What troubles me with foul and abusive language is that I understood it was punishable if it was used against match officials or even spectators

I deplore the use of it on the field of play but lets be fair we have all used it. The other thing is that we live in a society where little kids up to grans and grandads use it as part of their everyday life both male and female. Walk down any street and it is now everyday language and yet we expect people to play a physical sport and not be normal in so far as todays standards are required. Swearing is just words. They are short words which are quickly said and in 99% of the time on a pitch are soon forgotten.

We know we don't want to hear it but is there a directive given to referees at all levels to stamp down on it. You will often hear bad language and a normal commonsense referee will say 'hey cut it out' or 'watch it'. The others who seem to think they have the god given right to red card a player for swearing at either a team mate or another player seem to fly far away from commonsense and feel they can flash the red card around like confetti. And please don't say it doesn't happen in rugby because it does.

Out of the blue we have this supposedly coming from the FA about respect for the referee and officials. And absolutely right to and I agree 100% But we are not talking about abuse towards officials we are talking about unfiortunately todays normal bad language that is shown on TV in films, plays and you name it but for some reason referee's seem to think that bad language not used towards any official or spectator is now punishable by a red card

Perhaps someone can come on hear and tell us just what is the law of the game regarding to foul and abusive language because quite frankly the game will be just for choirboys, and you should hear them let rip and return to type when they leave the church.

Whatever happened to pure commonsense. I don't know where we are going with this because it may ruin the game we all love. What is quite clear is that many referees have lost the confidence of many in football and are hiding behind a red card when the problem could be solved with just a few words.

Referee's cannot change today's society

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Nuff said. Can somebody put the lights out at the FA when everyone has gone as there would not be any game in the land finishing with 7 players on one team if this is put into force. What will the boys in black do on a saturday then.

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Good post ECPL. I think any swearing aimed towards the referee, spectators etc should be punishable by a red but when something is said out of frustration to a team mate / opposition player / yourself even, then sending someone off for that is just crazy cause you really will end up with abandoning 95% of games!!

Like ECPL said, it's just words, and I don't understand people who get offended by it. I particularly disslike the word cucumber but I don't get offended when someone says it!!

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You are spot on Ken about Luke McPherson he does play for Tavistock and he was the third player sent off in the Bude v Tavistock ECPL game I referred to yesterday. Unforutnately that looks as if the red card will keep Luke out of the Throgmorton League Cup final against Bodmin Town on May day. I'm sure this well known flash the red card ref will have a little chuckle over that through not having a sense of humour. Perhaps Stig can have a word in his ear over this certain individual who doesn't deserve having his name mentioned on here.

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IF MR MCPHERSON HAD ALREADY WATCHED A PLAYER GET A RED CARD FOR REMARKS TO A REFEREE, THEN WHY ON EARTH WOULD HE EXPECT ANYTHING OTHER THAN A RED CARD WHEN HE WALKS UP AND DOES EXACTLY THE SAME THING?

DID HE HAVE LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAWS OR DID HE SIMPLY THINK THAT HE WAS GOING TO GET AWAY WITH IT?

SOME PEOPLE REALLY DO SEND THEMSELVES OFF SOMETIMES. (no, I wasn't there).

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Good post ECPL. I think any swearing aimed towards the referee, spectators etc should be punishable by a red but when something is said out of frustration to a team mate / opposition player / yourself even, then sending someone off for that is just crazy cause you really will end up with abandoning 95% of games!!

Like ECPL said, it's just words, and I don't understand people who get offended by it. I particularly disslike the word cucumber but I don't get offended when someone says it!!

spide your such a cucumber :P

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