[choirboy]

Originally Posted by cashman

"Crewe were the best side without doubt, but the farce that happened after the injuries to the officials deserve explanation surely? me and many i have spoken too do not believe that what happened is covered by the F.A.s rules".

FIRSTLY. I fully agree that Crewe outplayed Stanley throughout the first half and I think that we were actually lucky to be only one goal down at half time. So I have no issue with the scoreline.

SECONDLY. I have read the relevant rules regarding injuries to referees and assistant referees produced by the FA and I also read the FA rules for conducting The FA Cup.
I could not find a rule about the continuation of a match with only a referee and one assistant referee. As has already been pointed out earlier on this post ........ there was a call made to the FA and head of referees and they said that the game had to be played with one assistant. I believe that this decision was made on the spur of the moment and I consider that it was a MASSIVE MISTAKE and that the FA need to ammend/extend the relevant rules in 'The LAWS OF THE GAME' in order to make sure that the match should be allowed to continue fairly and in the full spirit of the sport!

THIRDLY. The fact that their was a 'Toss Up' for which team had the advantage of a defensive assistant referee is an admission by the FA that one team was going to be disadvantaged and would therefore be UNFAIRLY treated! The only way that the match might have continued IMHO was if Usain Bolt was a Fully Qualified FA referee, and that he was in our locality at the time of the match! Then perhaps he could have RUN THE LINE ON ONE SIDE OF THE PITCH FROM CORNER FLAG TO CORNER FLAG!....ZOOOM!


I thought that the excessively long delay, with very little information over the loud speaker system was really poor and inconsiderate to the position of supporters who needed to know what time they would be staying until at the ground. My daughter had to leave after only ten minutes of the second half as she had tickets for a concert in Burnley. Q; Should she be financially recompensed?

IMHO to play the second half with only one assistant referee was not only FARCICAL but very UNFAIR to the team losing 'The Toss'......(Stanley in this case). It was TOTALLY UNFAIR... IMHO because the team defending the half of the field without the linesman could not play a normal defensive game, they dared not attempt to 'Squeeze' their opponents out of the defensive area because of the risk of obvious 'off sides' not being observed. Some Crewe players clearly tried to take advantage of this and eventually the frustration for the defending side led to the Red Card.

I was told, or read somewhere, that the assistant referee who was on the pitch for the second half has not actually 'refereed' a match on the pitch for SEVEN YEARS. Players on both sides clearly tried to take advantage of him, they gave him far too much verbal grief and the lack of an assistant referee made his job pretty near impossible. He was so bad that it was only in the last ten minutes that I realised he was not an amateur referee from one of our local leagues who had been drafted in! In my view the 'new referee' was not fit to officiate from the centre of the pitch. He made some terrible decisions and denied clear penalty claims. I have never seen so much ridiculous and obvious shirt pulling at corner kicks and free kicks! However, IMHO the players should take more of the blame for this than the unfortunate second half referee.

I was also concerned for the safety of the players as things could have gone really out of control but luckily once Crewe scored the second goal, both sets of players seemed to sensibly just.... 'play the match out to its inevitable conclusion'.

It is easy to make comments 'after the event' but my own view is that the match should not have continued with only one assistant referee.

IN SUMMARY;
1) The second half of the match was NOT PLAYED ON A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD, in spite of Andy Holt spending £350,000 on improving our pitch last summer! This is completely contradictory to the LAWS OF THE GAME written by the FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION.
2) The FA need to rewrite their rules about this type of situation occurring in their 'Laws of The Game'.


THIS SITUATION SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN!
THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION MUST LEARN FROM THIS AND MAKE THE NECESSARY CHANGES PROMPTLY TO THEIR 'LAWS OF THE GAME'!