Derby matches between the two halves of
Manchester, United and City, always tend to be hotly contested.
This year’s game at Old Trafford was further inflamed by
provocative remarks from City Manager, Mark Hughes, who
suggested that his expensively compiled team would be too good for a ‘fading’ United. It turned out to be a wonderful game of football but City lost by a goal scored in the time allowed for stoppages, after they had equalised for the
second time right on the ninety minutes.
Hughes, living up to his nickname of ‘Sparky’, had to be elbowed off the touchline by assistant referee, Phil Sharp, as he protested violently about the referee’s timekeeping. Afterwards, instead of accepting that defeat was the result of sloppy defending, he said he was going to demand an explanation of the time played by the referee at the end of the game.
The BBC, in their Match of the Day 2 programme, did their own calculation, which claimed that the referee should have blown his whistle one second before Michael Own scored the deciding goal. I am able to give the true timing of the end of that game, from the Prozone recording of the match, courtesy of the PGMO, something you probably won’t find in any other newspaper in the country. But first let me look at the whole subject of timekeeping.
The Law quite clearly states that the referee is the sole timekeeper. Law 7,
Duration of the Match, tells him that allowance must be made in either half, for all time lost through substitutions, assessments of injuries to players, removal of injured players from the field, wasting time, or any other cause. The allowance made is at the discretion of the referee.
Some people think that at professional matches, because the fourth official holds up the board with time to be played that he is somehow involved. However, he only acts on the referee’s signal received a minute or so before the end of the ninety minutes and shows it on the ninety minutes, by which time there may already have been a further stoppage.
The other thing to remember is that the time shown is the minimum to be played. So three minutes and thirty seconds will be shown as three minutes. In the Laws of the Game instructions, it says this time may be increased if appropriate but never decreased.
There are claims that referees are compelled to add thirty seconds for all substitutes and goals but these are merely guidelines with nothing in writing as a directive. FIFA are keen that spectators are not cheated out of getting a full game. Personally, when I am refereeing, the last thing I want at the end of the game is to start doing mental arithmetic about how much time to add on when I should be concentrating on the play. Better to stop the watch as it happens. Keith Hackett, Manager of the PGMO responsible for the top officials, assures me that his referees stop their watches for the prescribed stoppages as they have always done.
In the Manchester derby, referee Martin Atkinson indicated that there were four minutes to be played and while fourth official, Alan Wiley, raised the board showing this, City were still celebrating their goal. The four minutes therefore began once the game restarted with the kick-off. The stats from Prozone showed that the goal celebrations took two minutes forty five seconds. Substitutions took two minutes fifty two seconds. Added time required was therefore five minutes thirty seven seconds. Owen was shown scoring at exactly 95.29 (five minutes twenty nine seconds) so it can be seen that this was well within the required time limit. Having carried out this analysis, Keith Hackett was satisfied that Martin Atkinson was correct as I think anyone would be, except perhaps Mark Hughes.