He Should Have Gone To Specsavers

I was at the Oxford United v Histon game yesterday and it was quite an experience. The game managed to bring (from memory) 5,360 into attendance, though Histons contribution seemed from where I was sat to number only 33. There may have been a few more in the directors box, and I am told Teddy Sheringham was also there to watch his son who came on in the second half for Histon.

Despite the cold stadium, the fans gave a fantastically warm welcome and are vocal and passionate. Despite not living locally (any longer) I shall be going back because it was a great day.

The reason for writing this was the shockingly poor linesman at the game. I mean shocking. He probably came up with the away fans, because he was either on the take or of exceptionally poor eye sight. In the first half, he gave Oxford offside when the there were two Histon players a full 10 yards ahead of the play… this was not one of those slow motion jobbies we see on Sky Sports where there is a cigarette paper in it; you could have parked a couple of cars in that space. A few minutes later, gave the very worst offside decision ever given in a game of football anywhere in the world in the history of time. Oxford were given offside, when not only not being in an advance position of a number of defenders, but also whilst not having a single player past the halfway line in the opponents half. There were at least three more offside’s given when there were one or more Histon players keeping Oxford’s advances onside, again not by a small margin.

Histons gameplan was clearly to kick and scrap their way through the tie, and were not afraid to get a little over physical. There was the cross-throat-drag-down in the box, that went unnoticed only by the ref and his comically unaware linesman as well as a number of other challenges that would not look out of place in a MMA arena. Histon did get one red card, and several yellow cards – but should count themselves fortunate not to have been reduced to 7 men and under police investigation for assault.

The officials got the brunt of the fan’s fury, and rightly so. But if the officiating is typical of the Conference level and below the FA really need to get these guys to start watching a video of their mistakes and their decisions. They should start with this game, which could provide a big contribution to any refereeing bloopers Christmas DVD.