[Salopbaggie]

Offside is offside where 3 inches or 3 feet, we would have been screaming from the rafters if it had been given as a goal and our opposition had scored it.  I do question though if a linesman can call that and be sure about it.

I'm sorry, but this doesn't wash with me.  From the first codified offside rule in 1863 through to the 2005 clarification about which parts of the body are liable to be considered offside, the purpose of the laws have always concerned the *advantage* an attacker derives from his position.  That's the *spirit* of the law; a man who's three feet offside is gaining a clear and obvious advantage over the defender, which he isn't with three inches.  But sadly it's not the *letter* of the law, which is why we're in this mess: the men who drafted the rules didn't imagine that computers and laser beams would be used to enforce them to the most absurd degree imaginable, resulting in fewer goals all round.

So no, I wouldn't be screaming from the rafters if it went the other way.  And I don't think you'd find any example of me ever doing so on here for a marginal call.  Screaming at our players to defend the ball into the box better, perhaps, but as for the attacking player?  He's positioned himself well (in that his body is in line with the defender's), he's taken the chance, good for him.  I don't care where his toes were when the ball was played, because he can't realistically whip out a slide rule and measure them for himself, and it has no bearing on the outcome.  Awful, awful use of technology.

I agree with the point on the framers of the rules of the game and what they envisaged when they designed the rules, but the 'current' rules are still the rules. If you took your position and you allowed an 'spirit of the law advantage', the matter then becomes a subjective decision and a rule in any game should never be subjective if it does not have to be. Once you allow say 3" discretion, then all you have actually done is said "to be offside an attacking player must be no more than 3"ish past the last defending player". What happens when the next player is advanced a further 3" then another 3", do you then say well its only another 3". It is like saying "well the wife is only just pregnant, so we will ignore it", she is either pregnant or she isn't. I am not saying I like the rules on offside, but the rules are the rules and the answer is, if you disagree with a rule, you campaign to change it, not ignore it. My aunt did not like football and always used to say, "football would be a much more interesting game, if the players had to play with their laces tied together", maybe that is the answer .