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I dont envy the match officials job one bit, a thankless task if ever there was one, but why make yourself even more unpopular?
Im not going to use this platform as a soapbox (well, not any more than usual) but the temptation at yesterdays farce to pack up my notepad & climb into my warm car & leave was huge. Leaving the left-back behind (& the managers wife & daughter) oh yes, and Mrs M-W, would have meant almost certain death so I stayed. Then I thought I could use a silent protest... but the local papers dont always run my reports (& no-one reads my blog) so next weeks papers not having my match report is hardly a sign of an uprising!! Anyway, more of my waffle at the bottom of the page, theres the small matter of yesterdays match to read through first....

Under 16’s – Division 2

Widmer End Utd 2 - Hale Leys Youth 1

Hale Leys Youth were swindled into their first loss of the season yesterday (Sunday) away to Widmer End Utd.

Leys started strongly & despite a boggy area of the pitch holding the ball up; made good play towards the Widmer End goal area. Although not completely pinning the home side back in their half they did keep a continual threat present.

A penalty awarded to Hale Leys after 15 minutes gave Luca Forchione the opening goal, cleanly slotting the ball past the keeper.

Five minutes later & Widmer seized their opportunity, a break forward brought keeper Ashley Kent out to dive to & capture the ball; but his outstretched hand was ‘studded’ & the pain left him down as the forward managed to stride over him & turn the ball into the net. Kent was substituted for regular keeper Gary Bidgway when he was unable to re-glove his hand.

Leys narrowly missed out on regaining their lead just ahead of the break when Luca Forchione turned in a masterful strike that targeted the back of the net perfectly but an extremely late line call saw the goal disallowed.

The second half gave an early free kick for Leys that Pat Hurst placed to the top corner of the goal & the keeper did well to punch the ball over the bar.

But from that point the game descended to a farce; poor officiating saw a clean challenge from Leys’ left back James Marsh outside the box result in a penalty being awarded; and when Forchione was brought down in the box play was waved on. This lead to poor feeling from the visiting spectators but the discipline of the visiting squad kept moving towards recapturing the game, but sadly with the poor officiating they were unlikely to get the point.

I've seen matches were this sort of officiating has resulted in on-pitch brawling (managers & former managers reading this may know where Im coming from) so with the 'Respect the Ref' campaign being pushed all the way through football I think its actually up to the Ref to earn it by performing his duties without bias or prompting from either squad (or their coaches).

Commendable discipline of the Hale Leys boys, in my view, showing the greater control (of inappropriate language) & respect to others you are the bigger winners..... the bigger men.