The League 1 General Chat Match Thread

[Boletus Edulis]

It's the referee's job to get important decisions like that right in real time. We could all see that it was a dive then the highlights confirmed that afterwards.
Bloody hell.

How many games have you reffed and been in the situation of making such pressured decisions? And at what level was it that you officiated?

 

[Bobbin']

Simply its a case of fan bias again - the team that got the 2 penalties think they were certs and the fans who teams were sinned against don't.

How often do you see both sets of fans agree on any contentious decision!?

Absolutely, but you can’t say to someone “yeah, you might have thought it was a penalty in real time but the highlights show it wasn’t” and then have a pop at the ref for doing the same thing.

 

[Super_horns]

Well you only have to look at your own Karl Robinson for the high expectations people have on officials.

They don't seem to be allowed to make any honest mistakes (and naturally they do...) in the game.

Players on the other hand can almost get away with anything ...

 

[07.05.16]

How many games have you reffed and been in the situation of making such pressured decisions? And at what level was it that you officiated?

Difference is he is in the job and I'm not! Other refs are capable of it!
The real problem is the FA appointing these clowns. He clearly couldn't handle having the big, noisy home crowd on his back.
I genuinely saw a higher standard of refereeing in the conference.

 

[07.05.16]

Absolutely, but you can’t say to someone “yeah, you might have thought it was a penalty in real time but the highlights show it wasn’t” and then have a pop at the ref for doing the same thing.

I was having a pop at him for still saying it was a penalty even after the highlights had been published.
He would be absolutely livid if it had been given against his team.

 

[ThisTinpotLeague]

I spend my time on here predicting three nil wins and arguing with Swindon fans on important points like grammar and even I think people who whinge about refereeing decisions are tedious.

 

[Boletus Edulis]

Difference is he is in the job and I'm not! Other refs are capable of it!
The real problem is the FA appointing these clowns. He clearly couldn't handle having the big, noisy home crowd on his back.
I genuinely saw a higher standard of refereeing in the conference.

So I will take it your answer is zero. Actually, it is not his job, not until he reaches the heights of the premiership.

Officials do make mistakes, but my observation is that they actually make fewer than the players.

What I would say though is that the standard of officiating in leagues one and two is not great. And there are one or two who I feel should be dropped. My own theory is that they are fast tracked too soon. Although I sound a bit like Fred Trueman, in my day it took a lot longer to get to the middle of the football league. I feel that some of these refs simply have not had enough experience of a range of situations in the leagues below. I also have a real bugbear with the Lino’s nowadays less likely to make decisions, but this could well be what they are told to do.

 

[Gassy]

Well it is his job - he may have another full time job, but his job is to make the correct decisions. I think the bigger problem recently is that we have been mugged off by refs all season. Normally these things work themselves out over the course of a season, but this year I have never seen it so bad. Unfortunately it’s just been all generally against us. It’s now got to the point where it has dropped us too many points and genuinely harmed our season - hence colleagues reaction because it is really taking the pee.

As for the game I watched the first half and we were superb. Played Plymouth off the pitch completely and Sod’s law that they scored with their first shot on target. They were extremely lucky to go into the break within a goal. I then missed the first 20 minutes of the second half so I can’t comment on the penalty yet although the general consensus is it wasn’t a pen and at this point Plymouth were really applying the pressure. When I came back to watch the game around 65mins it looked fairly even with Plymouth probably just shading it although not much in it. The second penalty happened so fast I have no idea what happened (watching on iFollow on my phone in Starbucks) - there looked like there could have been a hand ball but then it seemed the ref gave it for a foul? I’ll wait for the replays but this was my general impression of the incidents.

Overall we on now way deserved to lose (from what I saw) and deserved at least a point. It seems Plymouth had their pressure when i missed the game - even if its true when I switched back on their stronger half was no where near as dominant as ours.

Ah well we move on - play offs probably over now. We’re not good enough anyway to go up this season. Besides, one of Wigan Blackburn or Shrewsbury are nailed on to win the play offs. All 3 of those teams are literally miles ahead of the other teams we’ve played this season. No one has come close

 

[ThisTinpotLeague]

I'm not sure. No way is the better team guaranteed to win the play offs and being the one of the three to miss out could be a massive downer.

 

[LeonTheGreen]

I thought as others have said Bristol Rovers ran the game first half and with some shocking laid back keeping and terrible defending from Songo'o they deservedly went in at the break winning. As for the two pens, I'm in the Devonport behind the goal and had the perfect view.

The first one I honestly thought the referee would blow up for a dive. Makasi did go down easily, and it's the sort of challenge that'll spark up debate on match of the day. There was contact, but enough to send Makasi down? I'm not sure. Can't blame the ref for giving It, his view was obstructed from the two Rovers players. The lino was crap all game for both sides, he should have helped the ref out but said nothing. I won't complain though!

Not sure on the second one to be honest. A tale of two halves and some dodgy decisions meant we came out with a slightly lucky 3 points and a draw was probably fair. However we are on a run at the moment and everything is going for us.

 

[roversfan2001]

Only game called off in the whole of the top 5 divisions yesterday, hardly any snow, absolute disgrace to call it off less than 4 hours before kick off. If the reason was the 'dangerous' away end, move us into a different stand. If the reason was the weather forecast for later on, then call it off the night before to save us travelling.

 

[Gassy]

I'm not sure. No way is the better team guaranteed to win the play offs and being the one of the three to miss out could be a massive downer.

Can’t argue with that - just commenting on the quality that I’ve personally seen so far. I guess that’s why we love the play offs though

 

[LeonTheGreen]

Can’t argue with that - just commenting on the quality that I’ve personally seen so far. I guess that’s why we love the play offs though

I'd also like to remind you that we haven't lost to both Shrewsbury and Blackburn, taking 4 points off each. Screwed if we made the play offs and got Wigan though!

 

[joethegill]

Only game called off in the whole of the top 5 divisions yesterday, hardly any snow, absolute disgrace to call it off less than 4 hours before kick off. If the reason was the 'dangerous' away end, move us into a different stand. If the reason was the weather forecast for later on, then call it off the night before to save us travelling.

In fairness, we couldn't just move you into a different stand like you'd get at Bury or others - We have home fans occupying the home areas Seen a lot about it being the fault of the away stand but truth be told it wasn't on this occasion. The police advised that areas around the ground would be dangerous post-match, which turned out to be horseshit but I can only imagine the response had someone had a serious incident on some black ice.

 

[Gassy]

Just seen the highlights - the 2 penalties are poor calls for me. Especially the first, that’s awful.

The second he has gone down very easily from a brush of the arm (had to watch is about 5 times) - one side of me can say if you raise your arm then you're asking for it, but then the other side of me says well if player didn't dive then we wouldn't have this problem. I can see why the ref has given it, but I can't stand this nonsense diving, our player has barely touched you and you've gone down like you've been shot - football can be pathetic at times.. No wonder Rugby fans & players take the p*ss constantly

 

[Luke Imp]

Dickie was excellent today and my man of the match.

Has he settled in ok?

 

[ThisTinpotLeague]

Has he settled in ok?

I've seen him play twice, both home games. Small sample size but no problem having him in the first XI based on that.

 

[Marked Ox]

Has he settled in ok?

Yes, has been very good over the last few games. It looks like our defence is finally forming into a partnership and he is a big part of that.

 

[roversfan2001]

In fairness, we couldn't just move you into a different stand like you'd get at Bury or others - We have home fans occupying the home areas Seen a lot about it being the fault of the away stand but truth be told it wasn't on this occasion. The police advised that areas around the ground would be dangerous post-match, which turned out to be horseshit but I can only imagine the response had someone had a serious incident on some black ice.

If they based that conclusion on the weather warning, that had been in place for days. Didn't you call off a home game a couple of weeks ago on the Thursday? It just seems strange why the decision was made so late, given that the club said the pitch was playable.

Looking like the game will be Tuesday 10th April, can't imagine we'll be taking the 1200 we were bringing down on Saturday.

EDIT: Just been confirmed for Tuesday 10th.

 

[LS Bantam]

Doncaster Bradford tonight, not worthy of its own thread, on Sky so you can flick over when the adverts come on during whichever less mind numbing programme you’ll actually be watching.
Will we win? Probably not, can’t actually remember what that feels like. Will we score? Probably not. 1-0 home win.

 

[DearneValleyRover]

We need to win but never have against a Grayson side, our home form is poor so expecting it to be 0-0 until Bradford score a 96th minute winner

 

[bantamigo]

Wonder how many will go. It’s on TV, we haven’t won for three months, we haven’t even scored a goal for nearly 5 weeks, season’s over assuming we don’t slip into the relegation picture, it’s absolutely baltic. Fair play to anyone who makes the effort.

 

[joethegill]

If they based that conclusion on the weather warning, that had been in place for days. Didn't you call off a home game a couple of weeks ago on the Thursday? It just seems strange why the decision was made so late, given that the club said the pitch was playable.

Looking like the game will be Tuesday 10th April, can't imagine we'll be taking the 1200 we were bringing down on Saturday.

EDIT: Just been confirmed for Tuesday 10th.

Yeah we did, Rotherham was called off early and to be honest probably could've gone ahead as the saturday wasn't so bad.

As I posted on another forum, I think someone has just made a bad mistake on this one. Nothing untoward, just acting on inaccurate info and with best intentions at heart. It's not going to pay for wasted travel, nor calm the scorn aimed our way over the last couple of days, but I really don't think it's anything more than an overly expensive mistake.

 

[DearneValleyRover]

I think you only need a point to stay up, I can’t see whoever finishes in the bottom four getting more than 50 points.

 

[bantamigo]

I think you only need a point to stay up, I can’t see whoever finishes in the bottom four getting more than 50 points.

Don’t think there’s any danger of us going down but will be demoralising to see us dragged into the real arse end of the table considering where we were at Christmas. Just can’t see where we are going to pick up a win. After tonight we’ve got Gillingham who we always lose against and then Blackburn away where we will most likely get smashed.

 

[roversfan2001]

Yeah we did, Rotherham was called off early and to be honest probably could've gone ahead as the saturday wasn't so bad.

As I posted on another forum, I think someone has just made a bad mistake on this one. Nothing untoward, just acting on inaccurate info and with best intentions at heart. It's not going to pay for wasted travel, nor calm the scorn aimed our way over the last couple of days, but I really don't think it's anything more than an overly expensive mistake.

It does seem that way, Rovers have posted saying that concern was expressed as early as 9.30am, which begs the question of why was the game not called off then when it became apparent that the away stand/the surrounding area was potentially dangerous.

 

[PuB]

Have a look at the picture of the away stand on the link mate. Doesn't look like an over reaction from the club or police at all.

https://www.gillinghamfootballclub.com/news/2018/march/blackburn-off/

 

[DippyDon]

Two awful dives to win penalties for MK too apparently today. I don’t think we did enough anyway to win the game. It’s still annoying when that happens though, we have trouble scoring as it is. Puts more pressure on Dale and Oldham so not the worst result in the world.

Can see why you'd be annoyed by the first one, although it was more soft than a dive, the defender shouldn't have given Pawlett the opportunity to go down. The second I can't see a problem with, and in any case there probably would have been a penalty for handball just beforehand. Possibly another case of fan bias but that was my take on it.

 

[womble76]

I think you only need a point to stay up, I can’t see whoever finishes in the bottom four getting more than 50 points.

Ive been looking at form etc and reckn 52 or maybe 53 will be required..

 

[LS Bantam]

No striker again and five of the seven subs I would guess don’t have double figure first team appearances combined.