The Airtricity League

Today will see the start of this seasons Airtricity League in Ireland. Yes the season starts now, but I know that might confuse a lot of people but this league runs throughout the summer until the autumn. The supporters have been waiting patiently for the start and it all kicks off this Friday. This league is close to my heart as not only is it the top football league in our country; it’s also the league I refereed in for a few years. I have been asked on a few occasions over the years, what sort of standard is in the league ?. Well in my opinion the standard is extremely high and if the crowds were bigger and the TV stations gave it a bit more airtime it could be a super league.

The Airtricity League consists of two divisions, which are the Premier and Division One. Over the coming months I will be keeping you all up to date as to whom the winners and losers are. I am excited about the journey and I hope I can take you all along with me. Let me below just do a brief preview of the coming season and fill you in as to who the teams are.

The Premier Division consists of twelve teams including Bohemians, Bray, Cork, Derry, Drogheda, Dundalk, Galway, Limerick, Longford, Shamrock Rovers, Sligo Rovers and Saint Patrick,s Athletic. Reigning champions Dundalk will be a hard side to knock off there perch and if anybody can topple the team from Louth I feel Cork City, Shamrock Rovers or Saint Patricks Athletic. Each of these teams I just named could give them a good run for their money. The Rovers team are managed by former Hibernian manager Pat Fenlon, who has returned home to try and win the title with one of footballs most iconic clubs. All in all the Premier League looks like it is set up for a few exciting months. The actual TV stations have given it some air space, although not to sky’s proportion, it should be good and extremely competitive.

The First Division consists of only eight teams and all these teams will be battling it out to get back to the summit of the Premier. In this league there are a few teams who over previous years have played in Europe. The eight teams are Athlone Town, Cabinteely, Cobh Ramblers, Finn Harps, Shelbourne, UCD, Waterford United and Wexford Youths. In fact on the European front, if you go back to the seventies the great AC Milan played Athlone Town in the UEFA CUP. Athlone kept the Italian side to a nil all draw in Ireland and lost the second leg three nil but only after holding out for an hour with no score in the San Siro. In my opinion the three teams that will battle it out in this division will be UCD, Shelbourne and Waterford. These three should lead the pack and it is a toss up between them as to who gets the promotion.

As I said from the outset on this blog, I hope to bring you all the news from the Airtricity League as the season progresses. Stick with me and I will fill you in on all the ups and downs. It may not be promoted, as much as the Barclays Premier League but with these blogs it has to be a step forward. I shall be in attendance most weekends at games and I am really looking forward to seeing live football again; looking forward to the smell of the freshly baked pies and reading through my match day program. Any way that’s my preview done, next week I shall bring you all the news from the first weekends round of matches, Until then enjoy your week and may your team bring you happiness. Good Luck.

Incredible Decisions

What a weekend of sport we have just had. There was egg chasing in the Aviva stadium in Dublin between Ireland and England and lots of Barclay's Premier League to drool over. Well maybe drool is not a correct term to use, more so to admire would be the word I am looking for. But as sure as night follows day I was always going to have plenty to blog about as refereeing decisions are once again in the spotlight. It is starting to become a bit of a farce now as we seem to be getting more and more of the big decisions wrong. This week I am going to focus on issues involving Roger East and fellow referee Neil Swarbrick. These two lads were in charge of huge games at Old Trafford and The Brittania Stadium. Games were the boys needed to be tuned in and on top of there form. Unfortunately this was not the case and referees up and down the country must have cringed with anguish at there performances.

Let me start at the Manchester United v Sunderland game in the so called Theatre of Dreams. Well let me tell you after what Roger did he will be having nightmares for months about it. When I am looking at games and judging a referee I always look at the degree of difficulty the game had to offer the official. This game in my opinion was a piece of cake for Mr East to referee as he called his fouls early on and was in cruise control as the game went on. He got control of the game early on and in fairness could have got his armchair out and sat in the middle of the pitch and blew his whistle. So you can imagine my astonishment, when in the 65th minute his game imploded. Roger blew for a penalty which in my opinion was totally correct, as John O Shea had hauled down Falcao to the ground. No question, penalty! But to then produce a red card and show it to Wes Brown beggared belief. How had he got it so wrong ? What had he seen ?Where was the help from his assistant ? The answer to these three questions, only Roger can answer.

I have always said that players reaction tells you a lot as a referee and he should have known something was up, when John O Shea admitted to him he was the player. It was an horrendous decision and I for one would not have liked to have been in the officials dressing room at the end of the game. What had been going so well for Roger had now blown totally up in his face. Mistakes happen and this is part of the great game we love, so we just have to get on with things.So when I heard late on Saturday evening that there had been a statement released by the refereeing authorities trying to justify the decision I felt a total balls up was now been made of this mistake. It was if the referee was trying to wriggle out of the issue. Let us be honest Roger East got it wrong,I know,you know, even the dogs on the street know and to try and make excuses was pitiful. I expect Roger to have at least a week off next if not two weeks off.It also opens up an issue were the media are asking for referees to come out and explain there decisions after the games.When the statement came out it was ridiculed by the Match of The Day panel and other media outlets, so as I have always thought,that referees talking to the media is a non runner, it just ends up in a bit of I said,you said.

The focus for my second issue this week falls firmly at the door of Mr Neil Swarbrick. It is always important as a referee to make sure that managers have nothing to moan about,because managers often use blaming the officials on certain things, takes the eye off bad management decisions in the game. So in my opinion Neil got it horribly wrong on Saturday and gave Stoke manager Mark Hughes a platform to moan about a challenge which was put in on his player Stephen Ireland,that had the Irish lad needing stitches in a wound. The mistake by Mr Swarbrick was not the tackle on Ireland, more so the tackle Ireland had put in on a Hull player earlier in the game. In my opinion Stephen should have been sent off for an over the ball tackle on one of his opponents. If the referee had been tuned in and done his job properly, Mark Hughes would not have been moaning about the referee after the game as he probably would have had more pressing things on his mind. But as usual the referee gets the blame instead of a player who had to go off because of injury. As we know players can sometimes look for retribution for bad challenges on their team mates and in this case retribution was well and truly dealt out. So I hope when Mark Hughes has a look at a DVD of the game he see's exactly what Ireland did. I also hope Mr Swarbrick has a good look and realises that Stephen Ireland,s challenge on his opponent was worthy of a straight red card. If this had happened Mark Hughes would not have been given his platform to moan,by the referee.

So as I finish off this week, I do hope the whistling boys do get it right next week and stop this roll of horrific decision making.It is not hard to do really, just concentrate stay in the zone and your game will go well. Not to much to ask, but I just know that this time next week I will be discussing more bad decisions made by the so called elite of refereeing. I will sign off as I usually do and wish you and your team all the best for the coming week and if you are heading to a game do enjoy yourself. Until next time,Cheers.

Worst Refereeing Performance in Premiership History ?

Another weekend has ended in the Barclays Premier League and once again there are loads of talking points to have a look at in the refereeing world. According to former referees Chief Keith Hackett, we witnessed the worst refereeing performance in Premiership history at Stamford Bridge on Saturday in the game between Chelsea and Burnley, a game that not many people could see Burnley getting much from. I praised referee Martin Atkinson a few weeks back in my regular work for the boys at Pitch Talk and my views about the official have not changed. Martin Atkinson in my opinion is one of the top two referees in the country and I would back him every week. In fact not only is Martin a top official in the Barclays Premier League, he is also a top, top FIFA official. I will try and unravel below all the issues that led Keith Hackett to make such a statement.

Let us remember that these games are ninety minutes long and in the big scheme of things on the day Martin had only four big issues in my mind to deal with. Another thing to keep in mind is the behaviour of the players on the day, can also have a huge effect on how things can turn out for the referee. Three players who have to look at their antics on Saturday were Branislav Ivanovic, Ashley Barnes and Oscar. I am picking these three out for special mention as I feel they let the game down, by their behaviour. The first contentious moment was when Barnes appeared to leave his knee into Ivanovic’s back whilst challenging for a high ball. In my opinion his eyes were clearly on the ball, but he unfortunately caught his opponent. You could hear the Chelsea players scream as he landed and then rolled over not once but twice and then to my utter amazement he sprung to his feet and ran, arms swinging in complaint to referee Atkinson.

Once again a player trying to con a referee so as to get his opponent into trouble, the issue with Oscar was a nasty little challenge were he raked his studs down the back of Ashley Barnes calf, a cheap and nasty challenge that could have seriously injured his opponent. As you can see we are now developing an issue were Chelsea had picked out the Burnley player for special attention. Maybe they were trying to get retribution for the challenge earlier on Ivanovic. It was always going to lead to trouble and when Barnes and Matic clashed in the middle of the park later, sparks were bound to fly. A loose ball, where two committed players could challenge for, is what football is all about. Let us be under no illusion that Barnes won the ball clearly and unfortunately his robust challenge caught Matic. In my opinion there was no way he tried to break up the Chelsea player. If this challenge was so bad how come none of the other Chelsea players reacted, a little strange I taught because as we know they tend to pile in on incidents like this.In fact some of them run a fair distance to get involved. No the reason nobody came running to help Matic out on Saturday was because nobody thought the challenge was a tackle that players hate to see. As I said Chelsea players have a history of sprinting off the spot, to get involved in these issues. Matic was stupid to push Barnes and was correctly sent off. In fact the FA backed the referee yesterday and took no retrospective action against the Burnley player, a decision which I totally agree with.

So all in all, I think some pundits have been very harsh with their comments about Martin Atkinson over the past couple of days. Ok so he turned down a few penalty shouts, so what, that is what makes football the most talked about sport in the world. I thought over all he did not have his greatest performance of the season, but the media reaction has been over the top. I think it is about time the manager at Chelsea just got on with managing his team and stop worrying about conspiracy theories, because this is starting to back fire on him spectacularly. We are on the final run in now and the pressure is coming on from all angles to referees, players and managers but this is part and parcel of our game. The next couple of weeks are going to be brilliant in the chase for the title and if you are going to a game I hope your team gets its just rewards and you enjoy your ninety minutes. Until next week, have a good one.

It was Assault.

Their is only one place I can start this weeks blog and I would like to take you back to Chelsea v Everton game played at Stamford Bridge. I would like to shed some light on an incident involving Chelsea’s Ivanovic. An incident in which today as I am typing this article I’m still in shock that he did not receive a red card on the night or worse still, retrospectively. Now let us call this issue correctly. Any player who puts his hands on an opponent in an aggressive manner should be sent off in my opinion. I cannot understand why referee John Moss did not produce red, as it was an easy one as they say.

There were three key moments in this game for me and I thought the referee and his team got two out of the three correct. As we know Matic had a shot, which was turned in by Ivanovic, but there was no doubt he was offside. The Barry red card was also correct and I have to admit in my opinion Gareth had to go. But what turned my stomach was the reaction of the Chelsea players to what after all was just an every day run of the mill late tackle. It was nothing nasty, nothing dangerous and for the men in blue to surround the referee in the manner they did to get a fellow player sent off was disgusting. The Chelsea left back in actual fact ran at least forty yards to make sure he got his point across to Jon Moss about Barry.

Meanwhile as the referee was dealing with dismissing Barry, Ivanovic was using his head and hands around McCarthy’s neck to try and sort things out. Now I don't totally blame Jon Moss for missing the incident as the tactic of the Chelsea players to surround him and try and pressurize the official into making the decision in there favour, a tactic that is surely been led from the manager in my opinion. But in this situation the assistant referee should have helped his referee out by seeing the incident and making sure Ivanovic was sent off.

Having not taken action on the night, I was sure the authorities would hand out a retrospective red card later in the week but could not believe it when he was cleared. I have done some investigations this week as to who sits on that panel but have not been able to come up with any names. The one thing I have to say about the whole incident was Ivanovic had his hands around the Everton’s players throat and his intent was clear to see on millions of TV,s around the world to head butt his opponent. That is enough in my opinion to warrant a three-match ban, no doubt. Whoever the guys are who sat on the panel

I wonder if they have been swayed by the attitude lately of Chelsea that everyone is against them. If they have been sucked in by all this publicity and decided not to hand out retrospective punishment, well then the mind game master has won. In my opinion it was a red card all day long and they got away with it. This is also the second game in a matter of weeks were we have had controversy involving a Chelsea player been under the spotlight after a game. If you remember the last time the three blind mice sat down to look at retrospective punishment, in fact they handed out a three match ban to Diego Costa.

As we go into the final few weeks of the season I don't want to be blogging about referees not making the big decisions but if it has to be passed on for others to have a look at I do hope they get it right and don't bottle any decisions no matter how special the player they are dealing with is. If I can look at an incident in the Liverpool v Spurs game last week I would like to praise Scot Ledger who was assisting Phil Dowd on the night. The shout Scot gave Phil to tell him Danny Rose had fouled Sturridge was superb. Phil was never giving a penalty and he only gave it when a brave Scot had a word in his ear.This in my opinion was team work of the highest calibre and hopefully did not go unseen by the referees boss assessor.

If only the assistant had been as brave at Stamford Bridge, Ivanovic would be about to start a three match ban. Anyway if you are out and about over the next week or so, enjoy your game and I hope your team gets the result for you. Cheers for now.

I did not do it

It has been a fabulous week for our beautiful game. As per usual we have had our fair share of controversy. The big two issues this week involve a stamp and a handball. Two totally different issues but in a strange way they both had the same outcome as players claimed innocence. Let me below, lay out my opinion on the big talking points of the week and try and make some clarity on the moments that once again got people talking and so much more this week.

If I may, just let me take you back to Stamford Bridge last Tuesday night and a superb game between Chelsea and Liverpool in the 2nd leg of the Capital One Cup semi final. Having drawn the first leg one all, the tie was there for either side to win and you always knew their was going to be plenty of incident. What I did not expect was an act of thuggery in my opinion by Diego Costa not just once but twice in the game. He is known well as a volatile character at the best of times but his stamp on Liverpool’s Emre Can was cheap and the act of a coward. 

People have been on social media this week with photo’s trying to prove Costa’s innocence. But I am afraid he was 100% guilty in my eyes, the only problem was that referee Michael Oliver failed to see it because of bad positioning by the official. Some in the media would have us believe that the Chelsea player did not intentionally stamp, as his eyes were totally on the ball, that is absolute crap in my mind. He knew exactly what he was doing and I for one am glad the FA also saw it this way and threw out his appeal. The appeal process was swift and now he can think about his actions a he sits out the next couple of games. 

Suppose if you look at the Chelsea players appeal, it was probably something he had to do,to try and clear his name. If you look at it another way, if he didn't appeal he was admitting guilt to stamping on an opponent. This is something that would have come back to haunt him later in the season, as to have a history of something like this could lead to referees making him a marked man for the rest of the season. Mind you I do feel we will be talking about him lots more before the seasons end as I do feel this guy is easy to wind up and a good opponent could do it again this season to get a reaction and I have no doubt Mr.Costa will oblige.

The second incident I would like to look at is a handball in the Hull v Newcastle game on Saturday, not so much the handball but the aftermath of the whole issue. Now there is no doubt that Ahmed Elmohamady punched the ball into the Newcastle goal and only for a very tuned in assistant referee he would have got away with it. Now it wasn't a slight touch or even a deflection off his hand, it was a clear punch. When the ball hit the back of the net he ran away celebrating like there was no tomorrow. When Phil Dowd blew for a free kick on the advice from his assistant, Elmohamady’s face was a picture. He actually thought the referee was doing him an injustice by disallowing the goal. At half time he could be clearly seen telling the referee to look at it on a monitor in the dressing room at the break. 

Now this in my opinion is clear cheating and the player must have been off his rocker to think he could get away with it. In fact there is a case here for when the likes of this happens again a referee would well be in his rights to show a red card. If a player stops an obvious goal scoring opportunity by punching the ball off the line he receives a red card, so I think if a player willingly try's to cheat and con the referee by punching the ball into the net, he to should receive a red card. I tell you one thing if this law was introduced it would stop players from blatantly cheating and justice would be done. So I will sign off this week on that note and if you are going to a game any time soon enjoy yourself and I hope your team is victorious but by fair means. Until next time good luck.

Magical Atkinson

This is the time of the year when the big issues are starting to be settled in the football world. As we head into February and March titles and cups are up for grabs and top games need top referees. As you know from my previous blogs for the boys on Pitch Talk I do like to follow what is going on in the refereeing world and blog on all the big decisions. The first major semi final of the season was during the week between Liverpool and Chelsea. As we all know there is a lot of history between these two clubs and over recent seasons there has been plenty of controversy, the ghost goal and the Suarez bite, just to name two. So it was with great intrigue that I sat down to watch the game on Tuesday night at Anfield. I was delighted to see that Martin Atkinson had been awarded the game, in my opinion is one of the top two referees in England at the moment. The other shall remain my secret for the moment. So let me below try and give you a report from a referee’s viewpoint as to how Mr.Atkinson did on the night. 

The first thing that Martin did to help the game flow was not to be afraid to apply the advantage rule and this worked for him, giving us the public a rip roaring cup tie to enjoy. Sometimes referee’s blow to much and this can stifle a game, but not Martin he was prepared to let the game flow if the players wanted it. You are probably wondering on that statement, but there have been games recently where referees have tried to let the game open out only for players to ruin it by stepping across the line and fouling on a regular basis. Overall I thought Martin was superb and had only got three big issues to deal with. The Chelsea penalty was a 100% correct as the Liverpool defender put in a very clumsy challenge inside the box and left the referee with no option but to point to the spot. Players sometimes can give away the softest of penalties by lunging in or worse still going in to a challenge in the box when their body is not set up to make a challenge. The other two big talking points in the game were the dive by Costa in the second half and Courtois handling outside the box. 

Now let us put the handball incident to bed very quickly, yes it was handball outside the box but there was no way the referee could have picked it up, not in a million years. In fact the only way that everyone else saw it was because of Skys numerous amount of cameras placed around the ground. The Costa dive was really a non event in my mind, the player went to ground after passing by the defender and Martin was correct to do nothing at all but just play on. So throughout the game I was delighted with the officials match performance on the night. There in itself is also and issue in a two legged tie, if the referee in the first game has problems it can lead to the referee of the second leg to have a certain mind set going into it. I am glad to say that whoever gets the second leg need not worry as Martin Atkinson left a very tidy tie lined up to referee. I just hope that next week I am not reporting on a referee who has made a right mess of the game. On that note I will bid you farewell for this week and if your out and about at a match do have a good time and stay safe.

Trouble again at Elland Road

For the past year I have been blogging for the boys from Pitch Talk. If you are a regular reader of my blogs you will know that I mostly get involved in all things refereeing and try and give my views on decisions that have happened in matches.Over that period of time I have had a lot of people ask me do I follow any team myself. Now let me get it out there in this blog and yes I do support a team, the team in question is my beloved Leeds United. I have been following this great club for at least forty years now and on many ocassions I have been to Elland Road over the years. It saddens me to think how this great club has gone from the top, right down to the bottom over the years. Both on and off the field over the past couple of years things have gone so pear shaped you could write many a book about it. From financial melt down to points deduction I like many others have had to grim and bear it with a heavy heart.

It would be magnificent if Leeds United could just get things right on and off the park. In my opinion under the leadership of Ken Bates and manager Simon Grayson things seemed to be going in the right direction but when that relationship hit the wall it seems the club seems to have been on a very slippery slope. I know an awful lot of people will not agree with me but I really thought Ken Bates was a brilliant owner. I am not so sure if Ken had the finances to push the club to the next level,but he always had the ambition of the club and the fans close to his heart. I met Ken on a number of occasions over the years and I have to admit you knew where you stood with the man. When Ken decided to move on he sold the club to GFH as we all know. To say that was a disaster for all involved at Elland Road would be the understatement of the century. They were an absolute joke, promises made, promises broken and the club going backwards once again. I actually remember saying to a close colleague of mine when they took over was, what would this crowd know about running a club, they are a bloody bank after all. How true were my thoughts, in fact the only thing they seemed to do correctly was get out of a business they know nothing about.

The arrival of Massimo Cellino as the new owner was hailed by a lot of the fans as the opening of a brand new dawn in the club's history. But I am not so sure about an owner who sticks his nose into team affairs and from what I am hearing he does have a big say. In fact if you look at his appointment of Dave Hockaday as Head Coach at the start of the season it should have given us a big idea into the Italian owners mind set as we set off into a season. Dave Hockaday was a very lucky man to even get in the door at Elland Road never mind being the boss. Could anyone in there right mind believe that he wasn't Cellino's puppet and if the owner was calling the shots on team selection he would have the balls to stand up and be counted on his team selection. As it stands tonight, the owner is fighting for his right to stay as owner of the club after failing the proper person test to own the club. Neil Redfearn is trying his best to get things moving but I don't think he has the knowledge or experience to get us out of trouble. It is probably to late in the season to make a change now so we can only hope and pray Neil can get it right. One thing that won't help the cause is the refusal of the owner to sign Becchio back from Norwich especially after been requested to do so by Redfearn. The sale of Stephen Warnock to Derby was stupid, after all he has been arguably our best player this season.

So as we move on into the final months of the season this could be the biggest period in our club history. If relegated I worry for a club that has had so much trouble over the years. The need to get ourselves on a run and get to safety has to be paramount in every ones thoughts. Through all this mess I think back to the days when I was a lad and Leeds United were the best team in English Football and the players were household names, Giles, Bremner, Gray, Lorimer to name just a few. The man who ran the show was a certain Don Revie and I feel after what has gone on over the years since Don left must have the man turning in his grave.