There was good news and bad news about Alan Shearer when he retired from a long and illustrious footballing career at the beginning of the season.
The good news was that he declined the offer from Steve McClaren to join his England coaching team. The bad news was that he turned it down to honour a commitment to join the pundits on BBC
Match of the Day.
It seems to me that he hasn't yet cottoned on, that the other pundits are letting him make all the criticisms of referee's decisions. They know from experience, that misguided comments on the laws of the game, are likely to result in a flood of letters from referees up and down the country. He sits there with a self satisfied smirk after watching a replay from six different angles saying 'Sorry Ref'. He feels so clever, because he thinks he has detected an error, despite the fact that he has probably never owned a book on the laws of the game in his life.
Reviewing the recent Aston Villa game he highlighted a penalty decision against Fulham, when a Villa player was bundled off the ball. 'How could the referee give a penalty,' he cried,' 'the Fulham player held his hands above his head showing that he wasn't pushing the opponent'.
What Alan Shearer needs to do as soon as possible, is to spend some of his no doubt generous BBC fee and buy a copy of the
Laws of Association Football, or LOAF as it's known in the trade. It will cost him a mere £4. He should then have a look on page 25, Law 12 - Fouls and Misconduct and try to find where it says pushing has to be with the hands. Pushing is of course usually associated with the hands or arms but it can be with any part of the body.
Take the typical situation of an attacker jumping for the ball with a defender right behind him. How many times do you see the defender keeping his arms out clear of the attacker, but nudge him with his chest just before the ball reaches them. That's pushing.
Players will also use the thigh or backside to push players off the ball when making a tackle. And what about backing into an opponent, a tactic often used by strikers against their close marking
opponents? There is no separate clause in the laws, which says it is an offence to back into an opponent. It is classified as pushing or in some cases holding, which is another offence that is usually considered to be committed with the hands.
It is true that the most common form of holding these days is done with the hands, the plague like shirt pulling but holding can also be with any part of the body. A player is perfectly entitled to shield the ball with his body, providing he remains within playing distance but, as soon as leans his body into his opponent to prevent him from getting to the ball, then it becomes holding.
A favourite old trick when corner kicks are taken used to be to stand on an opponent's foot to prevent him jumping for the ball. That's holding with the foot. What about when two players go down and one
lies on the other preventing him from getting to his feet?
Another form of 'no-hands' holding. In the Fulham incident, the referee obviously decided that the defender was using his body to push the opponent off the ball and wasn't taken in by the player's subterfuge of holding his hands up high. I only hope Alan Shearer learns not to put his hand up in the
Match of the Day studio, when they want someone to comment on referee's decisions until he has a finer grasp of the laws.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2006