Johnson hails, Hughton fumes, but Championship refs are always a lottery.
Posted on October 4th, 2009 | 11 Comments |
Bristol City supremo, Gary Johnson has been speaking on his Robin’s side’s great escape at St James’s Park on Saturday, when bungling referee, Graham Salisbury, made several bizarre, mystifying decisions, culminating in his stout refusal to award Newcastle United an obvious penalty in the 73rd minute. This occured when frail, waif like Toon striker, Marlon Harewood, was cruelly hacked down in the box by City hulk, Jamie McCombe, denying Newcastle United three points in what proved to be a 90 odd minute festival of incompetence for the men in black.
Johnson said:
“I must admit, my heart was in my mouth at the time that Harewood went down.
“The lads felt there was a bit of contact but from our point of view, maybe he was starting to go down early, we don’t know.
Are you kidding, Gary?
Speaking on the “bravery” of the myopic Mr Salisbury, Johnson added:
“But he was very brave with forty-odd thousand people screaming for a penalty, anyway.”
Hughton fuming.
Meanwhile, Magpie manager, Chris Hughton fumed over the obvious miscarriage of justice in a post match interview:
“For me, it was an absolute certain penalty.
“There are some penalties where you are not sure whether the referee is going to give it or not.
“I could have almost looked away because my first impression was just waiting for the referee to point to the spot.”
Lower standard.
On a more general note, this kind of incident is likely to happen quite a few times for us in the course of the Championship season, more often than it did in the Premiership and that seemed bad enough sometimes. While it has been fairly obvious that the standard of competition in the lower league is of a lower standard than the Premiership, much less has been said about the lower standard of refereeing, which is also inevitable. It is not unusual for relegated teams used to the standards of the highest league to be shocked by some of the refereeing they encounter in the lower one, where most of the officials are excluded from the “Select Group” of referees, who are deemed worthy of officiating at Premiership matches.
So, if you thought the Premiership was bad, brace yourself for many more shocking decisions like the one on Saturday.
NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1093 articles on this blog.
so we’ve played what is it, 10 games, 11? and we get the first bad decision of note going against us and now the level of officiating in the championship is sub standard?? come on, bit ott maybe?
oh and another thing (maybe by myself here) saw dennis wise on the footy earlier and anyone else starting to sympathise with him on the nacho situation?
Is it that signing this guy for no fee, for a year, leading to first refusal of up and coming south american players was actually a GOOD – and dare I say it, logical – move for the club?
im coming round i have to say!!