Non-League Referees and Non-League Media

Non-League Referees and Non-League Media

          On Saturday I had the pleasure of watching the worst refereeing performance there has been at any level for a very long time. Ollerton Town ran out 2-0 winners away at Nostell in the Northern Counties East League (NCEL) Division One. The ref was a shambles from start to finish and his assistant on the far side wasn't much help either.

          The game began with an Ollerton defender being pulled him and receiving a verbal warning after winning an aerial duel fairly. This continued when another defender went into a challenge, pulled out of it and the opposing player hurdled him and kept running, before another free-kick was given.

          This all came to a head midway through the second half. Ollerton central-midfielder Eden Homer won a fair challenge in the box, clipping the ball away to an Ollerton teammate. Once the referee had turned his back, the Nostell player tumbled over Homer's outstretched leg (having just won the ball with it) and hit the ground. The referee could never see what had happened and must have given a penalty based on the shouts. The penalty was saved by Ollerton stopper Joey McCormack, but in the goal mouth scramble that followed, defender Brandon Shaw poleaxed another Nostell forward. It was a certain penalty that the referee failed to see. Madness. In the immediate aftermath to all of this, the assistant referee on the far side called across the referee who promptly sent off Ollerton manager, Dave Winter. After the game, Winter explained that he had been sent off for allegedly storming onto the pitch following the penalty award and shouting "Referee. You b*****d!" which in itself doesn't sound like it deserves a sending off, but to top it off the Nostell manager also claimed it never actually happened the way the assistant claimed it did.

Premier League official, Bobby Madley took charge of a game in the NCEL last season.

          The thing with this is it isn't an isolated incident. Nine times out of ten the referee you get in the NCEL is self obsessed and wants to be the centre of attention. The decisions are sometimes so bad, they're laughable. Sometimes it appears like a referee has a bias towards a certain team and gives them all of the decisions, other times the referee makes equally bad decisions each way and nobody knows what is happening.

          And, might I add, non-league media is one of the most infuriating things. There's a lot of small time media outlets who make themselves busy annoying people. One media outlet, who shall go unnamed, is always ringing up asking for interviews, giving exclusive interviews that surely the club should announce.

          Other outlets are biased towards the clubs that their writers are associated with, so some teams will never get any coverage at all. Match reports are always sent in by both clubs but the home team's one always gets used, despite how poor quality it could be and the information they give out is often incorrect as well.

          I don't know if stuff like this is exclusive to the NCEL but it gets petty, the other day Ollerton got dragged into an argument about whether or not a dog should be allowed into the ground. The fact of the matter is, if a club has a rule in place, then that rule should be followed. Don't argue with it as numerous people elected to on Twitter.

That's all for this week, just a short one.

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Until next time though,

Craig