One of the most annoying and difficult
tactic for referees in football today, is the holding, pushing and pulling that goes on at a corner or a free kick launched into the penalty area.
I suppose coaches have impressed on their players to stick close to their opponents but it seems that they’re so keen on watching the opponent that they forget to look for the ball.
So the next thing it’s in the net and Alan Hanson is talking about abysmal defending.
If referees punish a player for holding or pushing in these circumstances, they face criticism. When Sheffield United were in the Premier League along with Reading, their then manager, Neil Warnock, came on television to denounce referee Steve Bennett because he had given a penalty against a United player who had dragged Steven Gerrard to the ground. And this despite the fact that Bennett had warned the player a few minutes earlier before the kick was taken about holding Gerrard.
Incidentally, I wonder how many spectators at the Madejski Stadium noticed that Warnock, now with Queens Park Rangers, went over to the Reading management team and sarcastically applauded them when his central defender was sent off for a second yellow card last week, as if it was something they had engineered. I’ll bet he wouldn’t have done that had Wally Downes still been in the Reading dug out.
World Cup referee-to-be, Howard Webb, got even worse when he gave a penalty against Poland at Euro 98. Again he had warned the player concerned immediately before the kick but the player took no notice and pulled his opponent down. This didn’t stop Webb being the recipient of death threats including one from the Polish Prime Minister who famously said he would like to kill Webb.
In neither of these incidents was the referee to blame but still got all the criticism. Some commentators even say it’s something that happens all the time, as if this was an excuse and suggests they feel referees should ignore the offence.
The real question perhaps is that, as it is so prevalent, why aren’t more players penalised? The main reason I feel is that there is so much going on in the penalty area at these kicks; the referee simply can’t see it all. There is a wonderful video we show trainee referees of a Chelsea/Liverpool clash, when the action takes place entirely in the Liverpool penalty area. The ball goes back and forward across the area many times until the referee calls a halt by blowing his whistle. We ask the trainees what they would give but none of them ever see a foul. It isn’t until we show it in slow motion that they spot Didier Drogba holding down the jersey of Liverpool ‘keeper Pepe Reiner.
There is an even better video, which shows the referee’s difficulty, although at first glance it has little to do with football. There are two small groups of people mixed together in a relatively small space. One group has to bounce a ball to their colleagues while the other group throw a ball to one another. Two observing groups are chosen, one to count the number of bounces and the other group are asked to count how many times the other ball is thrown. At the end, the observing groups are asked individually their scores. They will all be different but they yet have to be asked the killer question – what about the gorilla? What gorilla? they say. Half way through, someone in a gorilla costume suddenly appears in the middle of the groups and the observing groups don’t even spot him.
This just illustrates how when you are concentrating on one particular thing, other things happen that you don’t even notice and this is what these frantic penalty area skirmishes do to a referee’s
judgement.
Dick Sawdon Smith
Back
To Contents