Worst referee I've ever seen

[nutty nigel 7,531]

I'm not a serial ref basher but I thought the ref was awful. And I suspect 25,000 of us would have if we'd been in the ground. I think I'm too old to become a new age football supporter and excuse the ref to highlight faults in my team. 🙃

 

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by nutty nigel

[sonyc 5,511]

It is a thankless task being a ref. To be a really good one, you must almost be invisible. But... they're paid decent money aren't they at this level and ought to be accountable.

And he must have been a poor ref last night because there are pages upon pages of discussion about his decisions or lack of them. Simon Hooper was the last one that received as much comment. 

Farke clearly felt very aggrieved and when I think about it I'm proud of his restraint. That must have taken a big effort for such a competitive bloke! He really is a fine human being.

Edited December 30, 2020 by sonyc

[Ken Hairy 3,772]

Are the refs in the EFL professional? I just wonder if that's the big issue at this level is the gap between their standard and the level of football too big. I say that because I played amateur football at a half decent level, and whilst we had some poor refs, we had some very good ones as well, but maybe our good ones would be poor at a professional level of the game, as they're not. If that all makes sense? 

[lake district canary 4,531]

Having slept on it, it feels as if that match was decided by the referee, not the players.  I thought both penalties that were given were soft in the extreme, the one in the first half where Pukki's shirt was tugged, jerked him a little and affected what he did with the ball as a result, so definite penalty for me. The offside was debateable, but in real time I thought Cantwell was offside and didn't get back onside and that is probably what the lino thought. The still photo shows him roughly level - technically onside, but he started in an offside position and maybe didn't hold his run enough to persuade the lino that he had got onside.

Plenty of free kicks not given that  should have been, offsides that weren't (Reading suffered from that too - some very dubious decisions) and yellow cards in abundnace, showing the ref had lost control.  Just felt like one of those games where the officials collectively had a bad game.

 

[Harry53 209]

11 hours ago, cambridgeshire canary said:

Sadly this is just the regular normal championship refareeing at this point

The  Linesman was at fault not the ref for Todd's goal. The rest of the time he was rubbish. Have to say the ref for our Watford game was excellent

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

9 hours ago, hogesar said:

The ref was shockingly bad and so was the linesmen.

Nothing to do with confirmation bias, we have had a host of shocking refs in our wins this season too.

This ref decided to make sure it would cost us with a host of awful decisions devoid of logic.

It was clear our pen was only given because he knew he'd messed up on the Pukki one, and possibly one more. Oh and when Vrancic was running into the area and was pulled back. Didnt need half a second to give QPR their pen (which was a pen, mind).

The standard of refereeing likely hasn't got any worse its just if you're a team that dominates play as much as we do, particularly in the final third, then there's much more decisions to be made for or against you in terms of fouls in dangerous offensive positions. That's whats probably highlighted it.

Sorry Hoggy, but your appraisal of the refs is based on a combination of negativity bias and confirmation bias. The linesman made one shockingly bad decision for the disallowed goal - what else did he do that was shockingly bad, in your estimation? As for the ref 'deciding to make sure it would cost us', based on what? 

Thinly veiled accusations of collusion and all this 'worst ref ever', 'standards worse than ever' guff needs to be called out.

In the interests of balance your last paragraph is, in my opinion, a very good point well made.

[essex canary 496]

10 hours ago, Feedthewolf said:

Thanks buddy, that clears it up. I guess the reaction of our coaching staff on the sideline should have made it obvious that we'd been done an injustice there. Yep, that's a shocker.

I wish Pukki could keep his armpit in an onside position.

[hogesar 9,658]

29 minutes ago, Feedthewolf said:

Sorry Hoggy, but your appraisal of the refs is based on a combination of negativity bias and confirmation bias. The linesman made one shockingly bad decision for the disallowed goal - what else did he do that was shockingly bad, in your estimation? As for the ref 'deciding to make sure it would cost us', based on what? 

Thinly veiled accusations of collusion and all this 'worst ref ever', 'standards worse than ever' guff needs to be called out.

In the interests of balance your last paragraph is, in my opinion, a very good point well made.

Sorry, to confirm, yes i'm 100% biased in favour of Norwich City 🙃. I guess part of negativity and confirmation bias is i'm not aware of it?

In terms of other shockingly bad decisions:

1) Mclean getting elbowed in the face and being given a foul against him

2) Pukki holding onto the ball, turning a defender and playing Cantwell through only for Pukki to have somehow apparently fouled the defender

3) Vrancic breaking into the area from the left after a clever one-two and being pulled back just outside - not even a free kick

4) Mclean fouled in the build up to their penalty

5) Our first Pukki penalty appeal, although this is minor as i've seen them given and not given.

 

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

26 minutes ago, hogesar said:

Sorry, to confirm, yes i'm 100% biased in favour of Norwich City 🙃. I guess part of negativity and confirmation bias is i'm not aware of it?

In terms of other shockingly bad decisions:

1) Mclean getting elbowed in the face and being given a foul against him

2) Pukki holding onto the ball, turning a defender and playing Cantwell through only for Pukki to have somehow apparently fouled the defender

3) Vrancic breaking into the area from the left after a clever one-two and being pulled back just outside - not even a free kick

4) Mclean fouled in the build up to their penalty

5) Our first Pukki penalty appeal, although this is minor as i've seen them given and not given.

 

That's it, buddy. And because pretty much everyone is biased in favour of their team, that's what makes refereeing such an impossible task.

What I was asking for was other decisions from the assistant referee who you accused of being 'shockingly bad', rather than having made one poor decision (and yes, that one was a shocker).

I haven't denied that Mr Langford made a lot of errors last night; he probably knows he has, in hindsight, as every official is assessed for every EFL game (unless Covid has stopped the assessors getting in, in which case they'll probably be able to watch on TV at least).

Numbers 1, 3 and 4 I would certainly agree were mistakes, but as I remember it I can see how 2 was given (that kind of decision is one of the most difficult in the game to judge, trust me on that - happy to explain in more detail if you wish, but refs call them the '9 to 5' decisions - number 9 against number 5, both using their bodies to protect or block the ball/win an advantage).

The most important point is that nobody other than other refs and assessors keeps track of a referee's performances; they only notice them when they're called out in the media, or when they have a shocking game, or when their decisions go against your team. You'll remember Mr Langford next time we have him, of course. But 99% of the media surrounding referees is negative or based on controversy, so with the human brain's negativity bias is it any wonder that recruitment and retention of referees is so difficult? That leads to a smaller pool, and lower standards... and so on, and so on.

The only way to change it is for fans to be more accepting of the difficulty of the referee's role and for the media to be more positive in their representation of officials. The culture sucks, and it needs to change.

[hogesar 9,658]

8 minutes ago, Feedthewolf said:

That's it, buddy. And because pretty much everyone is biased in favour of their team, that's what makes refereeing such an impossible task.

What I was asking for was other decisions from the assistant referee who you accused of being 'shockingly bad', rather than having made one poor decision (and yes, that one was a shocker).

For the linesman, it's hard because iFollow doesn't give you a great view but I said he was behind play on multiple occasions and looked about 80 years old. I thought maybe I was being unfair but a quick look at Michael Baileys twitter..

 

All this is before the ridiculous decision to rule out our goal!

[kick it off 1,948]

8 minutes ago, Feedthewolf said:

What I was asking for was other decisions from the assistant referee who you accused of being 'shockingly bad', rather than having made one poor decision (and yes, that one was a shocker).

To be fair, if you miss one decision of that scale as a linesman, you've had a shockingly bad game no matter which side it went against. I get the points you're making but ultimately either his incompetence not knowing the rules, or his poor performance implementing the rules at a critical moment, cost us a perfectly legitimate goal. 

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

4 minutes ago, kick it off said:

To be fair, if you miss one decision of that scale as a linesman, you've had a shockingly bad game no matter which side it went against. I get the points you're making but ultimately either his incompetence not knowing the rules, or his poor performance implementing the rules at a critical moment, cost us a perfectly legitimate goal. 

Sure, let's not get bogged down in semantics. It was a shocking decision, and it cost us a goal. You shouldn't be getting those decisions wrong at that level, ever. There is zero chance of him not knowing the rules. I've run the line at a reasonable level (Jewson League back in the day, and professional academy games, and some of those strikers/offside traps are bloody fast!), and your eyes have to be everywhere. Look away for a split second, and the picture has changed by a yard or two. Yes of course you shouldn't look away, but you have to be able to see when the ball leaves the boot, then look back to the line, while ensuring you're absolutely in line with the last defender. All I'm saying is that an infinitessimally small error of judgement can be the difference between making a borderline call either way and making a shocker.

Bottom line, though, assistants at this level shouldn't be getting those wrong.

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

12 minutes ago, hogesar said:

For the linesman, it's hard because iFollow doesn't give you a great view but I said he was behind play on multiple occasions and looked about 80 years old. I thought maybe I was being unfair but a quick look at Michael Baileys twitter..

 

All this is before the ridiculous decision to rule out our goal!

 

12 minutes ago, hogesar said:

For the linesman, it's hard because iFollow doesn't give you a great view but I said he was behind play on multiple occasions and looked about 80 years old. I thought maybe I was being unfair but a quick look at Michael Baileys twitter..

 

All this is before the ridiculous decision to rule out our goal!

Fair! If MB is prepared to call him out on Twitter with his unblemished view of the field, I'd imagine he's not far wrong. But he's still partisan, and he's still not a referee, so this is part of the problem - MB doesn't have to justify those comments or be held to account for them, yet they're in the public domain.

I'm not saying MB shouldn't say it, or that he's wrong; I'm just saying that it's all part of the confirmation bias. If our Athletic journo calls him out, it must be right. Right? But do we really know if that linesman was up with play or not? If it was on Sky, we could go back and check his positioning. But because that's a faff, let's just agree with MB and say he wasn't up with play... see what I'm saying?

[hogesar 9,658]

3 minutes ago, Feedthewolf said:

 

Fair! If MB is prepared to call him out on Twitter with his unblemished view of the field, I'd imagine he's not far wrong. But he's still partisan, and he's still not a referee, so this is part of the problem - MB doesn't have to justify those comments or be held to account for them, yet they're in the public domain.

I'm not saying MB shouldn't say it, or that he's wrong; I'm just saying that it's all part of the confirmation bias. If our Athletic journo calls him out, it must be right. Right? But do we really know if that linesman was up with play or not? If it was on Sky, we could go back and check his positioning. But because that's a faff, let's just agree with MB and say he wasn't up with play... see what I'm saying?

I understand where you're coming from. I think context is important though.

In this case, MB is calling out the linesman before any major decisions - we survive corners so we've not been significantly disadvantaged but he goes out of his way to point out the linesman is behind play.

In my case, I saw his tweets after I thought i'd seen on screen the linesman 10 - 20 yards behind play (hard to tell admittedly). 

On the balance of probability I'm comfortable in saying that Linesman was awful, too old and too unfit and should never officiate at this level again 🙃🙃

[canarydan23 4,060]

2 hours ago, Feedthewolf said:

 

Fair! If MB is prepared to call him out on Twitter with his unblemished view of the field, I'd imagine he's not far wrong. But he's still partisan, and he's still not a referee, so this is part of the problem - MB doesn't have to justify those comments or be held to account for them, yet they're in the public domain.

I'm not saying MB shouldn't say it, or that he's wrong; I'm just saying that it's all part of the confirmation bias. If our Athletic journo calls him out, it must be right. Right? But do we really know if that linesman was up with play or not? If it was on Sky, we could go back and check his positioning. But because that's a faff, let's just agree with MB and say he wasn't up with play... see what I'm saying?

Ironically, you seem to be suffering your own bit of confirmation bias, or cognitive dissonance, here. 

Rather than look upon the evidence objectively, your reaction is to find ways to discredit it because it doesn't fit as snugly into your pre established perspective. It's human nature; the brain is not wired to hold onto two competing opinions, hence the dissonance created when faced with this scenario. Therefore your subconscious will instantly direct your brain to get rid of the one it can most easily.

It's the basis for all this affirmation stuff life coaches teach you. If you repeatedly and continually state an objective as an affirmation in the present tense, ie, I have a chiseled six pack, eventually your subconscious will be re-programmed to make not having a six pack the easiest belief to expel and you'll suddenly find yourself having the urge to do 100 crunches a day. At least that's the theory. 

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

1 minute ago, canarydan23 said:

Ironically, you seem to be suffering your own bit of confirmation bias, or cognitive dissonance, here. 

Rather than look upon the evidence objectively, your reaction is to find ways to discredit it because it doesn't fit as snugly into your pre established perspective. It's human nature; the brain is not wired to hold onto two competing opinions, hence the dissonance created when faced with this scenario. Therefore your subconscious will instantly direct your brain to get rid of the one it can most easily.

It's the basis for all this affirmation stuff life coaches teach you. If you repeatedly and continually state an objective as an affirmation in the present tense, ie, I have a chiseled six pack, eventually your subconscious will be re-programmed to make not having a six pack the easiest belief to expel and you'll suddenly find yourself having the urge to do 100 crunches a day. At least that's the theory. 

What objective evidence have I overlooked, in your opinion? All I've been trying to do in this thread is call out statements based on bias rather than objective evidence. As someone who has studied the laws of the game and refereed for a number of years, objectivity is the most important thing of all!

The only objective evidence that has been presented on this thread is the still shots of the 'offside' decision, which I have agreed was a clear, obvious and very poor mistake from the assistant.

[Alex 26]

Until we dont win again he is, and then the referee for that match will be the worst referee ever then. 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Alex

[Ian 1,129]

6 hours ago, lake district canary said:

The still photo shows him roughly level - technically onside, but he started in an offside position and maybe didn't hold his run enough to persuade the lino that he had got onside.

Ah yes, technically onside. The best form of onside, not to be confused with those other forms, like "looks miles onside", "persuaded the assistant he was onside" and, err, non-technically onside eh Lakey?

Hmm, I do wonder if this sudden ability of people to emphasise with the assistant referee who made an absolutely basic error which probably cost us 3 points has anything to do with that there Cantwell scoring the goal? After all, he likes to post pictures and stuff on his Instagram which isn't really what a pro footballer should he doing, so he probably deserved it anyway.

[TheGunnShow 5,940]

16 hours ago, Feedthewolf said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias

It's a thing. Nobody remembers good referees or good decisions, they only remember the bad referees and the bad decisions.

I'm not denying that tonight's referee got a lot wrong and that his errors cost us points.

But the reason refereeing is 'so bad' is because everyone except referees is partisan, and remembers the decisions that go against their team and forgets the ones that go for them.

Fully prepared for a load of ranting, effing and jeffing in response to this post, but once the dust has settled there's a lot of truth in what I'm saying.

Not from me, a former referee. That's bang on. 

[lake district canary 4,531]

1 hour ago, Ian said:

Ah yes, technically onside. The best form of onside, not to be confused with those other forms, like "looks miles onside", "persuaded the assistant he was onside" and, err, non-technically onside eh Lakey?

Hmm, I do wonder if this sudden ability of people to emphasise with the assistant referee who made an absolutely basic error which probably cost us 3 points has anything to do with that there Cantwell scoring the goal? After all, he likes to post pictures and stuff on his Instagram which isn't really what a pro footballer should he doing, so he probably deserved it anyway.

I'm not trying to empathise with the linesman, I'm just trying to work out why he gave offside.  I was wrong about the rule, so the only other explanation is that the linesman genuinely thought Todd was offside, either because he thought he had stayed offside all along, or he himself wasn't quite up with play which would make it look as if Todd might have been offside when he kicked the ball.

[Petriix 2,835]

No one is expecting officials to get everything right. It's obviously a difficult and unforgiving job. But he seemed to be completely blind to the QPR players' hands; for the elbow in the face and three occasions that our players were grabbed by the arm when running beyond a defender. One was the last man when Pukki was through on goal which should have been a red card as well.

As it happens, the foul on Cantwell was the softest of the penalty shouts; the other three were absolutely obvious. You might forgive him bottling one or even two of those, so we should have had at least one more penalty, and would have been playing against 10 men. These are not marginal or subjective decisions. The ref cost that game by being incompetent. That's ignoring the aberration that was the phantom offside... 

[Mr Angry 1,555]

In the first half, a QPR player was flagged for offside-I thought it was direct from a throw in but then I thought I must have been mistaken. Given the same assistant referee’s mistake for Todd’s offside goal, I’m not not sure now.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

We are beginning to sound like victims.

As I said last night, we have taken advantage of some dodgy decisions.

Anybody see Burnley v Leeds. Ben Mee clobbered from behind by goalkeeper, Burnley score, goal disallowed and free given to Leeds. With VAR as well.

Its always the refs fault and lets get stuck into him. That helps overshadow 180 minutes without a goal from open play.

[nutty nigel 7,531]

I'm worrying that all these months without going to games is turning us into fair minded football followers🙃

[canarydan23 4,060]

3 hours ago, Feedthewolf said:

What objective evidence have I overlooked, in your opinion? All I've been trying to do in this thread is call out statements based on bias rather than objective evidence. As someone who has studied the laws of the game and refereed for a number of years, objectivity is the most important thing of all!

The only objective evidence that has been presented on this thread is the still shots of the 'offside' decision, which I have agreed was a clear, obvious and very poor mistake from the assistant.

I didn't mention objective evidence (maybe that's what your subconscious brain read) but that you should view the available evidence objectively. 

Your instinct was to question the content of Bailey's tweets and search for a way to rationalize them to fit your opinion; seek out possible bias, dismiss him as partisan, discredit his credentials. 

An objective analysis would conclude that his partisanship or lack of refereeing experience aren't particularly relevant. He's not likely to be making up these judgements and certainly not to make them up and go public with them. So we can reasonably assume on that basis that the linesman's errors were not restricted to the absolutely shambolic decision to deny us a goal. Or worse, he saw it correctly but was as au fait with the offside rules as some Pinkun posters, which is frankly unforgivable for a linesman. A bit like a bricklayer not knowing the difference between cement and cake batter. 

[The Real Buh 3,432]

Imagine defending referees

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,431]

The ref was dire. They mostly are. Refs are paid well. All this nonsense about there wouldn't be a game without referees is cobblers. Without football 90% of these individuals would be nowhere near any kind of elite sport. 

The Ref made it up as he went along. Refs do that. They give decisions based on extraneous circumstances, like the appeals (I heard the squeals for their pen from our flat)  , "contact" (whatever that is) and where the incident happened on the pitch. 

Football refereeing  is about the big decisions. The "moments" that change games. That is how they are judged. There were clear and obvious errors throughout. Pukki was pulled back - and the ref saw it . Anywhere else on the pitch he gets a free kick. 

The lino was nowhere near play and was a disgrace. NCFC will write, as clubs do, with the details of the officials' performance , and quietly this lino will be spoken to.

The originally  intended VAR would have helped no end last night - but the arrogance of POGMOL with their ludicrous parameters have made VAR not fit for purpose 

Anyone who doesn't think we should complain about a  group of officials who were at best incompetent , because of some guff about "these things level out" should take up fishing . 

Oh and PS. 

I have taken the Refs exam. My Father was Class 1 (back in the day) and a close family friend was a Prem Ref . 

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Graham Paddons Beard

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

5 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

I didn't mention objective evidence (maybe that's what your subconscious brain read) but that you should view the available evidence objectively. 

Your instinct was to question the content of Bailey's tweets and search for a way to rationalize them to fit your opinion; seek out possible bias, dismiss him as partisan, discredit his credentials. 

An objective analysis would conclude that his partisanship or lack of refereeing experience aren't particularly relevant. He's not likely to be making up these judgements and certainly not to make them up and go public with them. So we can reasonably assume on that basis that the linesman's errors were not restricted to the absolutely shambolic decision to deny us a goal. Or worse, he saw it correctly but was as au fait with the offside rules as some Pinkun posters, which is frankly unforgivable for a linesman. A bit like a bricklayer not knowing the difference between cement and cake batter. 

Haha, touché on the first point 🙂

I still maintain that this isn't confirmation bias or cognitive dissonance on my part; in fact, I am considering both sides of the coin and making as objective a judgement as I can. Not only am I a passionate, red-blooded football fan who spent a lot of last night getting the total f**king rage with the officials' decisions, but I am also someone who has studied, trained and performed the duties of a referee and an assistant referee over many years. Therefore, I seek to contextualise officials' decisions within a framework of real-life experience and first-hand evidence from working with much more senior officials to help me understand their decisions.

With the sentence in bold, how can you say that this (your) analysis is objective, whereas mine is subjective? I wasn't even saying that MB was wrong, or might be wrong; rather I was trying to underline my point about the relationship between overwhelmingly negative media coverage and the brain's negativity bias as being emblematic of a wider problem.

I really can't be arsed to drag this out over several hours/days/pages; I'm aware that taking a position of defending referees is neither popular nor populist. I'm not a seasoned debater with a psychology degree, I'm just someone who thinks it's important to remind people how difficult officiating is and encourage them to try to consider things from the officials' perspective before making damning indictments. I think that objective has been achieved for now, anyway, so I'm happy to get back in my box 🙂

[Graham Paddons Beard 2,431]

1 hour ago, Petriix said:

As it happens, the foul on Cantwell was the softest of the penalty shouts; 

Football knows that this is true. Football knows that Refs give decisions based on , as I have said earlier, extraneous factors. 

Pukki was fouled . The ref saw it - he couldn't have not. After that the players got into his ear , and then - hey presto - he finds a set of circumstances (Cantwell) to give a penalty. 

Warburton was right to some extent - at half time he said their dressing room feared the Ref would do that.  Warburtons rationale however wasn't correct and he knew it. He knew the ref had failed to give a decision and would likely be vulnerable to calling a decision in Norwich's favour. 

[Feedthewolf 4,846]

 

53 minutes ago, Graham Paddons Beard said:

The ref was dire. They mostly are. Refs are paid well. All this nonsense about there wouldn't be a game without referees is cobblers. Without football 90% of these individuals would be nowhere near any kind of elite sport. 

The Ref made it up as he went along. Refs do that. They give decisions based on extraneous circumstances, like the appeals (I heard the squeals for their pen from our flat)  , "contact" (whatever that is) and where the incident happened on the pitch. 

Football refereeing  is about the big decisions. The "moments" that change games. That is how they are judged. There were clear and obvious errors throughout. Pukki was pulled back - and the ref saw it . Anywhere else on the pitch he gets a free kick. 

The lino was nowhere near play and was a disgrace. NCFC will write, as clubs do, with the details of the officials' performance , and quietly this lino will be spoken to.

The originally  intended VAR would have helped no end last night - but the arrogance of POGMOL with their ludicrous parameters have made VAR not fit for purpose 

Anyone who doesn't think we should complain about a  group of officials who were at best incompetent , because of some guff about "these things level out" should take up fishing . 

Oh and PS. 

I have taken the Refs exam. My Father was Class 1 (back in the day) and a close family friend was a Prem Ref . 

 

"The Ref made it up as he went along."

What else was he supposed to do? Decide beforehand how he was going to referee the game?

Considering your connections to refereeing, your lack of empathy is staggering. Did you ever actually referee yourself, or just take the exam? And yes, it does make a difference if you're going to make broad-brush assertions about officiating while bringing your personal experience into the frame.

If you have actually refereed yourself, you'll know the phenomenon of the game where nothing goes right; you get a big 50/50 decision in the first ten minutes, after which one team is on your case to even it up. You then miss something, or your assistant misses something, and from that moment onwards it's a free-for-all as both teams feel injustice and are calling for every single decision and getting increasingly irate when one goes against them. This is how negativity bias can add up to make a referee's position almost untenable in a match, and it can be genuinely frightening to be in the middle of it when you're the only one on your team and you're getting paid £20 to have dog's abuse hurled at you by 22 grown men and know-it-all bullies on the touchline.

Take that fear, and then imagine yourself having to do it in the professional game. People's livelihoods, and the socio-economic status of entire cities and counties, can rest upon an individual decisions made with thousands of people screaming at you. When you fully consider the parameters involved, I find it deeply saddening that people will perpetuate these pile-ons at every available opportunity.

My point is not about last night's officiating. It's about how abuse and vilification of officials is totally endemic throughout the game, is propagated and perpetuated by the media, and filters down from what we see on TV and read in the papers to what we do on a Sunday morning at Sloughbottom Park. There will always be mistakes from officials, just like there will from players. At every level of football, there's a baying mob circling around smelling blood; waiting for the poor sod in the middle to lose his composure or control so we can all pile in and blame him (or her) for everything. 

Football must do better.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Feedthewolf