A rant at referees

Last month vs Stoke, Lee Mason was totally inept, one of the worst refereeing exhibitions I have seen this season. We cant use him as an excuse for not beating a boring Stoke side whose ‘timewasting’ from the 7th minute left a lot to be desired. But Stoke had a bad referee day last week against Everton, and we had the usual bad referee that we always seem to get. It seems we get poor refereeing decisions week in and week out.

Martin (Chelsea) Atkinson is also another terrible Ref who gives us ‘nothing’ (apart from bookings) and his inept performance in booking Bale (again) against Sunderland was not only unjust but incompetent.

The problem is that these ‘little jobsworths’ have never played the game. All they have done is learn from a book. They have absolutely no idea what a ‘real’ foul is, they book and send off players for wrong reasons, they have no idea what ‘obstruction’ is, and unless you actually play the game you will never know what Football is all about – and that is the problem with the referee’s of today.

What really annoys me with refs is when players feign injury. I played the game for over 40 years and never feigned an injury, If a player rolls and rolls, you know they are Not injured. If you get hurt, you simply do not move. Surely a Ref should know this – if not they should be taught. Players will take on the ref’s as much as they can, but because the Ref’s have never played the game they are simply just ignorant of the facts. I have also Referee’d, and of course never got everything right, but did know the difference between right and wrong challenges and certainly knew the rules better than the so-called professional Ref’s we have today.

Years ago, some players used to pack up playing and take up refereeing. The salaries players are on today means that will never happen again.

Since Referees went ‘professional’, the standard has dropped considerably. But what can we do. Is there any point banning them (as players are banned), probably not, because they will never get any better, and the Ref’s that come in for them are just as bad.

It is also ridiculous that they crawl out of the woodwork, referee a game and then can just walk away after a game and get on with things when players are being banned and unable to play. Ref’s should be called upon to say why they made their bad decisions. Yes we should applaud the good decisions they make, but most Ref’s make far more terrible decisions than they do good ones.

And yes, Refs are biased, and there is one rule for 3 or 4 teams and another for the rest. You only have to look at the decisions over many many years that have gone the way of Man U and the Woolwich Wanderers to see that Refs are biased.

I dont have the answer, all I know is that Referee’s are now spoiling our great game.

By CheekyCockney