Why should football abandon all ideas of fair play and sportsmanship? It's an abdication of responsibility. That opening goal wrecked the game, giving it a strange otherworldly feel. It's not only the officials who should feel embarrassed about it.
I think he's got it wrong here: the simple fact is that unfortunately football abandoned these principles some time ago. Only in rare individual cases is such sportsmanship shown, and almost always when nothing is at stake. Take for example the sending off of Chris Iwelumo at Preston on Saturday, the defender Sean St. Ledger has supported the Wolves striker in his bid to have the red card rescinded, stating the lack of any intention on Iwelumo's part to injure him, and he believed that it was an accidental collision. Such fair play between professionals is nice to see, but it's unlikely that St. Ledger would have protested vigorously for a penalty against him had he committed a blatant foul that had been overlooked by the referee in the last minute of the game with the scores level (erm, if you see what I mean!). I find it amusing that when the ball is returned to the opposition after someone has 'sportingly' put the ball out to allow for treatment to an injured opponent there is a spontaneous round of applause. Of course you should give the ball back, it wouldn't be any other way in almost every other sport! That's because people at football matches are not use to seeing such acts of sportsmanship; players now appear to be hard-wired to indulge in petty acts of gamesmanship, such as delaying and gaining a few yards for free kicks and throw-ins, 'simulation', winding up the opposition and supporters, and so on. It's become second nature.
Now I'm not suggesting that we should just accept things the way they are, but right now that is the way they are, and it requires a seismic shift in attitudes to get to a position where the two captains on Saturday would have had a quick chat and then Watford would have been allowed to trundle up and score. That is what should have happened in an ideal world, but I am not sure we should be criticised for not making that happen.
3 comments:
It's clear that the goal has occurred for reasons other than what has been reported in the press.
It must have been one of the following:
(i) The linesman Nigel Bannister...oops I mean Assistant Referee.....no, I do actually mean linesman, paid a visit to the school for Blind Irish Referees that Max Boyce used to sing about
(ii) Instead of the Reading FC Academy trialing Hawk-Eye goal-line technology using optical sensors, it seems that Watford had been testing a new system with inductive technology where a goal is detected once the ball is in the vicinity of the goal line - the only problem is that somebody sat on the control box at the start of the game and changed the sensitivity
(iii) Mr. Bannister should have gone to Specsavers
One question though - it's all very well Mr. Atwell saying the linesman told him it was a goal - where the bleedin' hell was he looking when the ball briefly went over the line several yards wide of the goal?
At the end of the day it worked against Reading - we were on top until then and it fired up Watford like a raw chilli stuffed up the jacksy. It's a good job Shane Long had his stealth fighter roller skates on (same sort of stability) as he ploughed into the box and got the pen.
I'm looking forward to the replay - a dire 0-0 might be just the thing after all the excitement
Quite, so at Referee School the hypothetical question goes something like this: Right class, the assistant flags for a goal even though you are well positioned to see it could not possibly be so. What do you do...Atwell? Um, whistle for a goal sir? Wrong answer Atwell you half-wit! Join Poll over there in the corner!
I guess we'll get good Question of Sport/Trivial Pursuit ratings for the next 20 years though.
In the spirit of the 'respect' agenda we did exactly the right thing. We respected the referee's decision - it's not Reading's fault that it was such a terrible decision. To have let Watford walk one in would have been to disrespect the referee's decision
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