The last three games I’ve seen have been marred, I think, by over- officious refereeing decisions which saw players (only one of them ours) harshly red carded.
Surely there has to be some discretion used in determining what is or isn’t violent conduct, particularly if no blows were aimed or landed.
I have seen bookings for challenges which in days gone by, would be considered hard but legal tackles – not even fouls – but now considered bookable or even red card offences.
You’re getting old when bobbies look young but I think some of today’s refs look even younger – more like young loons who haven’t reached puberty or where they are not quite of an age to have stopped wetting the bed yet.
I just can’t see that some of them have the maturity, life experience and interpersonal skills to manage inflamed passions in adults older than themselves.
I see a rigid, formulaic, sometimes smart-ass adherence to the letter rather than the spirit of the law. A few days ago I saw a defender trip over the ball trying to trap it before clearing it from the box – his back was to the goal he was defending.
The keeper beat a forward to the stationary ball and the ref blew for an indirect free for a pass back. I guarantee that nobody who had ever played the game saw that as a pass back. No attempt at all to get the ball to the keeper.
It would take an absurdly convoluted interpretation of the idea of a pass let alone a pass back to reach the conclusion that ref did. My gut feeling was that he thought he was being clever – a wee loon with a traffic warden mentality amongst men trying to show he was clever.
I fear for the future.