[Lord Snooty]

The bad news is.......

Birmingham play Rotherham next week. If we don't beat Swansea, we'll be down before Brum come here.

[ritchiebaby]

Rebecca The Ref - I remember her. She was conned by Hull City and we lost a late goal then too. Just keep on playing until Town lose a goal.

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BBB - I don't mind predicting League One. Just put down Mullin to score for Wrexham and you'll be OK.

[Lord Snooty]

Some thoughts on Rebecca the Ref and the over reaction online......

As ritchiebaby pointed out, she was our referee as recently as the Hull City match. She was easily conned by the timid Tigers then, who would fall over at the slightest touch. She didn't like our aggressive tone at all. So with this still fresh in the memory, were the players warned not to play into the hands of the Bristol players' soft arse antics? They obviously knew what she was like as they conned her into giving two of ours yellow card within minutes of the start.

Some of the things said online have been a bit naughty. Most of them though are accusing the EFL of "box ticking". Not fit to referee at Championship level and she's only there because somebody at the FA has a gender agenda.

Well, she is a terrible referee. But is it because she's female? Is it eckerslike! I agree she shouldn't be refereeing in the Championship, but neither should Lewis Smith. Neither should Josh Smith.

Who are they? Brothers? Don't know. Lewis is the imbecile who gave Preston a penalty on Tuesday night. Why is there more disgust at a penalty in the 9th minute of injury time than an awful penalty decision eight minutes after half time? They're both terrible, but who remembered the name of Lewis Smith, even though it was only five days ago? That decision changed the course of the game.

And Josh Smith. Who's he? Well he's male and had a far worse 90 minutes than Ms Welch did. He's the one who booked Kasumu for diving at Rotherham, when it was the most nailed on penalty ever. He was so bad that poor Sorba ended up getting a yellow card for dissent, closely followed by another one for a perfectly timed tackle.

And they're not the only ones. I can only remember one match this season when I've said afterwards that the ref had a good game and that was the recent win over Millwall. And I still can't remember his name either.

So in conclusion, it's not whether refereees are male or female that matters, it's the actual ability. Referees in the Premier League are so bad that they've had to bring in something called VAR or video assistant referee to give it it's full name, because they are hopeless at the job they're paid handsomely to do.

Oh and apparently, Rebecca Welch has got a PL game next week.

[Lord Snooty]

Great news for anybody thinking Rotherham will be an easy game for Birmingham on Saturday.

The Millers have sacked Leam Richardson and brought Steve Evans back.

New York. New York.

[Devongone]

Aren't Women's and Men's Football very different games? They are played on the same size pitch with the same basic (largely now idiotic) rules, but they look and proceed almost nothing like each other.

Men should be delighted to have women watching their game, commenting on it, discussing it and helping to run it in all sorts of ways, but why do they want or need women (who have never played THEIR game, never could and never will) refereeing them? Similarly why would women want men (who have never played THEIR game, never could and never will} refereeing them?

Referees need to be sensitive and to understand THE game they are refereeing. That's why we see so many EFL and Premier League matches being ruined by both refereeing decisions and bizarre changes to the laws of the game. The ref' simply does not comprehend the game at the level at which it is being played. HE does not get how the players and managers even feel! If HE doesn't what chance has SHE from one step further away.

There is no way in which men and women can be equals in each other's games. We can appreciate and even absolutely love each other's sports, but there is no way of participating in the sense that a Hollie Doyle or Rachel Blackmore do in horse racing.

My view is that it is patronising to women to put Rebecca Welch in charge of a Premier League game. The WSL needs her. It needs all the female officials, coaches and managers it can get so that it can grow and provide role models for young girls starting out in the game.

We can, and are already sometimes, taking gender equality to the point that it becomes hogwash. Equality doesn't mean the same. Much as I admire Bukayo Saka I am never going to black, nor am I ever going to have his ball skills. Nor am I going to become Eni Aluko or anything like her. We can provide equal opportunities and respect for all who play irrespective ......... but going down this road of pretending we are all the same in the way we play and even think is nonsense.

If we can't embrace and celebrate difference we start down a road that ends in discrimination, tyranny and wars. We all need the best woman referee to be IN the women's game, as much as we need the top female player to play in that game too.

We shouldn't be treading on eggshells trying not to say the ref is rubbish because she is a woman. What we need is men who played the game at a good level to be continuing in the game as referees and decision and policy makers. And women need that same progression within their game.

It takes a lot of bravery to be a referee at all. So we need to respect them and stand by their honesty 100%. WE don't need anything which makes that harder for the ordinary fan.

[theo_luddite]

If it makes you happy ....

https://www.theguardian.com/football/202...son-sacked

got a ticket to see Sheryl Crowe in the Piece Hall

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Oh, already covered by Snoots

Every Day is a Winding Road as they (she) says.

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For reasons I don't fathom and never will Devon, there's a ban on former pro's becomng refs. Pure bloody lunacy. Former cricketers have become umpires for donkey's years.

[Devongone]

Is there a ban? When did that idiocy happen? Steve Baines was a pro' for Chesterfield and he refereed in EFL league games. What level classifies as pro'? Northern Premier? Isthmian? Southern Central? North East Counties - plenty of them get part-time payments. That disqualifies almost all senior football, only those in what is idiotically classified as Junior Football qualify to ref, and very few of those good at even that level go on to referee. So every ref' you see was a shit footballer?

You don't HAVE to have been a good footballer to be a good ref, but it will help. Martin Atkinson was a good ref' and he started I think at 16, I guess because he wasn't as good at the game as he would have liked. But he understood the game. He clearly could read the game even if he wasn't great at keepie-uppies. He very rarely was hit by the ball or got in the way of the game. Yet apparently top refs now regularly find themselves in the way. He could read what was happening and what would happen next and they can't.

One area where they particularly need a former player is in the VAR room. A prime mover behind VAR, David Elleray, was a rugby player and Geography Master at Harrow. The one good result of his refereeing career was the development and implementation of goal-line technology, which was surely his recompense for having prevented Chesterfield reaching the cup final.

If the rules and refereeing them don't make sense to expert players and former players there IS something very wrong.

I have never built a bridge or even studied the technology, so don't let me try to build one. SIMPLES as the Meercat says.

If a member of an uncontacted tribe wanders out of the Amazon rainforest and is put on a plane to England, in the FA's view he is a better bet to referee a professional football game than someone who played the game at a high level? Yeah that one should work well.

One of the best Rugby League referees was Billy Thompson. He didn't play the game. He was a former professional footballer (for Gillingham I think).

[Lord Snooty]

I've no problem with shit refs. Refs have always been shit. It's part of the game.

The trouble with VAR being here now though is that they're just getting shitter and shitter. Relying on the technology to sort out their decisions.

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As for Steve Baines. I thought he was alright in the one match I saw him. Think it was a televised cup game.

[Lord Snooty]

PGMOL have apologised to club for the wrong decision made by the referee to award City a penalty.

Well that's nice then.

I wonder if they apologised for the Kasumu injustice at Rotherham or the stinker of a decision at Preston.

Or is it just the lateness in the game that makes it worth an apology?

[Devongone]

VAR has to make it harder for refs because it concentrates everyone's attention on THE DECISION.

The thought that the decision has to be right and provably so is essentially what's wrong. Sport is about accepting the decision of the honest man or woman put in charge. The ref is right even when he is wrong.

The pundit saying, "Look at the replay he should have been given offside, he obviously DID bring him down, he clearly DID handle it ......" should be sacked and tarred and feathered ....... alongside the idiot who first said of goalkeepers, "it doesn't matter how you stop it so long as you do" that led to keepers being too scared to catch the ball.

We think football is improving and that we are improving it, yet for all the areas in which the game has taken massive strides forward we seem happy also to classify obvious steps backwards as improvements.