There I was, sitting in the bar minding my own, when this Spurs supporter sidled up to me. 'That linesman last night doesn't know the rules of football'. As he was a friend of mine I didn't point out, as I might have done, that we don't have
rules in football, we have laws and we no longer have linesmen. Today they are
assistant referees. I contented myself with saying, 'I doubt if that is true.'
There is a feeling amongst some supporters that assistant referees in professional football are somehow inexperienced second-raters, there to make up the number. The truth is that they are all well qualified referees themselves and, when they are not running the line, they are refereeing in senior football and have many years experience in both refereeing and lining. I therefore thought it highly unlikely that the official who had evoked the wrath of the Tottenham fans would not know the laws of the game, but of course I didn't know what he was being accused of.
'I didn't see the game' I explained, 'so you had better describe what happened.' The story he told me was that a Tottenham player had shot from outside the penalty area. The
opponents' goalkeeper saved the shot, only for the ball to rebound to Les Ferdinand, the Spurs striker, who put it in the net. His joy was however short-lived as the referee blew for offside.
'Was Les Ferdinand in an offside position when his team mate shot?' I asked. My informant agreed that he was. 'That's it then' I said 'he was offside'. 'But the linesman didn't raise his flag until it bounced off the goalkeeper', he
replied, 'and you can't be offside when the ball is last played by a defender'. This confirmed my belief that the assistant referee
did know the law and my refugee from White Hart Lane did not.
My problem of course was explaining why the decision was the right one. It is correct that the law says 'A player in an offside position is only penalised if the ball last touches or is played by one of his team' but that doesn't nullify the correctness of this decision. It all comes down to a change in the offside law in 1995. The phrase 'seeking to gain advantage' was altered to 'gaining an advantage by being in that position'.
Prior to the alteration in law the assistant referee would have raised his flag when the Tottenham player shot, even if the ball had gone straight into the goal, as Les Ferdinand would have been deemed to be 'seeking to gain advantage'. A little thought reading required perhaps but, as one league manager - I think it was Brian Clough - said: 'If the player is not seeking to gain advantage, what the hell is he doing on the pitch'
Now under the rewritten law, Les Ferdinand, or any player in this position, has to actually gain advantage from being in an offside position before they are penalised. This means that, if the ball went direct into the net, the goal would be allowed. The only thing that would change this, is if he were to interfere with the goalkeeper in some way, perhaps unsighting him, or interfere with an opponent who might have otherwise got to the ball. It was not until the ball bounced off the goalkeeper that Les Ferdinand gained an advantage and that is why the assistant referee did not flag before. He had to wait to see what happened although it may seem a little late.
If Les Ferdinand had been onside when his team mate shot and
had then run into an offside position before the ball bounced off the goalkeeper, he would not have been penalised. As my Spurs fan admitted, this was not the case,
and the decision was correct. I wonder if I convinced him.
Dick Sawdon Smith