09-01-2023, 13:59
It looked as though she was refereeing quite well a lot of the time but the truth is she turned a 4-2 win to us into a 3-3 draw with two huge mistakes.
It was only one little football a yard over the line that David Elleray got wrong, prevented us deservedly going to Wembley, that we've talked about ever since and may well have motivated his lead role in VAR and goal line technology.
They were monster, game-changing errors. In gymnastics it would be the equivalent of falling off the beam twice. That triple back flip and the complex perfect twisting dismount just don't make up for the major deductions.
I'm a big believer in going with the referee and accepting the rough with the smooth, because that's sport. That's the lesson it teaches us about life. But if we want refereeing to be as good and accurate as possible, assessing two major errors as less important than the series of minor errors most National League referees seem to make throughout games seems odd. If Fitzsimmons had dropped the ball in our net twice you'd have been apoplectic ..........
It was only one little football a yard over the line that David Elleray got wrong, prevented us deservedly going to Wembley, that we've talked about ever since and may well have motivated his lead role in VAR and goal line technology.
They were monster, game-changing errors. In gymnastics it would be the equivalent of falling off the beam twice. That triple back flip and the complex perfect twisting dismount just don't make up for the major deductions.
I'm a big believer in going with the referee and accepting the rough with the smooth, because that's sport. That's the lesson it teaches us about life. But if we want refereeing to be as good and accurate as possible, assessing two major errors as less important than the series of minor errors most National League referees seem to make throughout games seems odd. If Fitzsimmons had dropped the ball in our net twice you'd have been apoplectic ..........