No Replays Thank You!

The World and its wife wants france to replay their game with Ireland-even Thierry Henry (clearly under advice from his PR team!) agrees! Well, before jumping on the bandwagon, look at this:

That was from earlier in this campaign, when the Irish were losing with twenty minutes left to Georgia, but were given a lifeline by that imaginary penalty and went on to win 2-1. The referee ignored the linesman, who was rightly flagging for offside in the build-up, and, in case you were wondering, gave the penalty for offside when, at the end of the replay, the ball brushed a defender's chin with his hands by his sides!

The crux of the matter, for me, is that the Irish F.A.'s chief executive, in his appeal to replay the France game, claimed "the integrity has been questioned." Yet oddly, he wasn't rushing to offer the Georgians a replay on that occasion! Hypocrisy? Never!

I remember Craig Faulconbridge scoring a goal which the ref didn't give despite the fact that the ball hit the support inside the net and bounced out, saw another Wrexham goal disallowed because the ref thought a steward's high-vis jacket was the linesman's flag (I think that was Faulconbridge too, poor chap!) and once we were knocked out of the League when a Neil Roberts header which would have put us through, wasn't given despite it going well over the line.

That's why I'm not up for video evidence. Why should certain teams qualify for a different level of justice than us because they have a higher profile? Our games are videoed, but there's absolutely no chance of such action being taken over a controversial incident involving us. (If there was, there'd be more than Lamine Sakho getting punished after this, I suspect! Particularly, keep your eye on the foreground around 1.56!)

Let me put a scenario to you. We get to the Fourth Round of the F.A. Cup (I never said it wasn't a far-fetched scenario!) and draw Wigan away. In the previous round, they sprung a surprise by knocking Manchester United out with the aid of a video replay decision in their favour, yet if we, in the same competition, had been involved in an identical incident, in Wigan's situation, we wouldn't have had the same form of justice meted out to us; we'd just be out of the cup. So teams get different levels of justice in the same competition, which surely can't be right. And, we'd have lost out on a huge pay day at Old Trafford. I'm getting so angry at this imaginary loss. We could have rebuilt the side with that cash! The integrity of football has been questioned!

Video Killed the Altrincham Star

I bemoaned last week that football can't be a level playing field at all levels, but something I've heard about subsequently has made me think again.

Altrincham player James Smith has been banned for three games by the F.A. for using his elbow on Mansfield's Jake Speight in an off-the-ball incident. None of the officials saw the incident so how, I hear you ask, could there be a case for him to answer? The explanation is simple: YouTube!

Yes YouTube, the agent's friend! Until now, it seemed its only use was in helping to flog mediocre footballers on to unsuspecting, rash clubs with more money than sense. A carefully placed, well-edited video can make any mediocre striker look like Pele! Expunge your dodgy keeper's errors with some creative use of Windows Movie Maker and you'll get half a million for your Lev Yashin save-alike!

Smith was caught when video of the incident was posted on the ubiquitious video-hosting site. The incident happens around the thirty second mark, and it's clear he did it. So fair enough, but the fact that Graham Heathcote, Altrincham's manager, has complained that this will lead to mobile toting fans bringing rough justice to players up and down the land. So what if they do? If it helps catch players out when they think, in the apparent safety of the Conference, their misdeeds will be obscured, then good! And anyway, that was the official match video on there, not a fan's video! It all smacks of the sort of sour grapes we usually get from Alex Fergsuon!

There's one question raised which makes me wonder though; if the official videos can be used like this, why doesn't this happen more often? Was it the fact that it was made public that forced the F.A. into action? If so, that isn't a great precedent.

On the other hand, if this leads to more scrutiny on the decisions made at our level, some of those dreadful Conference refs we've had to suffer lately will be having some sleepless nights!