Torquay United v St Albans F C Saturday 21 Sept KO 3pm

[torregull]

Apparently the Referee's Assessor thought the referee had a good game and was laughing at the fans reaction to him at the end.

[Owlgull]

Apparently the Referee's Assessor thought the referee had a good game and was laughing at the fans reaction to him at the end.

Says it all….

[portugull]

torregull you cant be serious!

If he thought the Referee had a good game he was not concentrating!!

[portugull]

I get it now. However bad the ref is the League cannot criticise them because they are short of refs. Could that be the reason?

[torregull]

You could be right-Richard Hughes, writing in the Herald Express, reported that he approached the Assessor after the match about the referee's performance and he was dismissive-telling him to take-up the whistle himself if he thought he could do better!

[culmstockgull]

Many years ago when working in london I went to a chairity function where Bobby Moore was the guest speaker, he maintained as captain he always found it productive to get the ref onside from minute one, be constantly respectful and realise they make mistakes and support them when they do, he reckoned the way he treated the officals was worth on avaerage four wins a season that they might not have got.
I sit on the halfway line in bristows so get a good view and hear most things wotton screams.
Consider, you are a part time official who has travelled a good distance to be paid a pittance to then get constantly abused in the most industrial of language, words and attitude that on a saturday night down the seafront would more often than not get you arrested. human nature suggests that you are not going to be giving that manager anything let alone 50/50 decisions. Besides, the target of wotton's abuse on saturday was the fourth official who has very little impact on the game.

[desperado]

I expect they are pretty used to the abuse,not saying it's right though, but the referees assessor laughing at the fans reaction to the Mussa pen not being given is totally unprofessional, on a par for the Nat South I guess. He should take a look at the slow motion replay of the incident before he laughs.

[BigDave]

Why unprofessional? No assessor is going to make a quotable adverse comment to a journalist and it is naive to expect otherwise. The referee may have made some mistakes - that is a subjective judgement call which will be influenced the observer's (lack of) neutrality - but if the referee gets 75% of his decisions right it could reasonably be said that he had a decent game: it's all relative. Compare with a goalkeeper saving 75% of on-target shots or a striker scoring with 25% of their shots.

[Taelee73]

I would be expecting a ref to be getting 90% of the decisions correct, he has an assistant linesman on each side of the pitch to help him. The linesman not flagging for the penalty should also be questioned, how neither of them thought that wasn’t a foul and a red card is bizarre, could see it was a pen from the Bench.

I agree Wottons attitude to the officials probably doesn’t do him any favours, but one look at the oppositions bench would show them acting similarly about decisions given/not given.

[AdrianC]

I would be expecting a ref to be getting 90% of the decisions correct, he has an assistant linesman on each side of the pitch to help him. The linesman not flagging for the penalty should also be questioned, how neither of them thought that wasn’t a foul and a red card is bizarre, could see it was a pen from the Bench.

I agree Wottons attitude to the officials probably doesn’t do him any favours, but one look at the oppositions bench would show them acting similarly about decisions given/not given.

I totally agree with your point about the linesman / assistant referees! For me, at this level and to be fair even lower, if the linesman sees something clearly he should be flagging! None of this “the referee only wants them to give throw ins nonsense!” ALL of the officials at this level are qualified and should be capable of spotting a foul or indeed a dive!

The other thing I always think of is that YES players make mistakes, but they are trying to control a ball, think of the pass or shot with a 14 / 15 stone lump of a centre half breathing down their neck, a referee/ linesman isn’t competing for the ball and isn’t about to be tackled!

[North Curry House]

The Assistants are given instructions from the referee, most do not want any signals and say look at me and follow me. Only if law is not followed does the observer down grade the refs marks. The Observer should not comment or interact with supporters or press.