The Archive

The job of refereeing is being made even more difficult than before because players and managers increasingly refuse to admit when they are in the wrong, says Philip Cornwall

Anyone who doubts how much pressure referees are under these days needed only to listen to David O’Leary explain just why his Leeds team had failed to qualify for next season’s Champions League, after they came up one point short of Liverpool’s total. It all came back to the fact that in the last minute of their match with Manchester United on March 3, with the score at 1-1, a Wes Brown own goal was disallowed for offside. “Those two points have cost us. One man’s decision has made a big difference to us.”

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Mike Ticher thumbs through some of the classics of ref literature and finds a world of egotists and backstabbers

One of the first referees to write his autobiography (assisted by Kenneth Wolstenholme) also had one of the best stories to tell. At 37, Arthur Ellis was the youngest Wembley Cup final referee when he oversaw Newcastle v Arsenal in 1952, ran the line in the final match of the 1950 World Cup in front of 200,000 at the Maracana and was in charge of the notorious “Battle of Berne” (Brazil v Hungary) in the 1954 World Cup.

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Continuing our series about extinct competitions, Jim Heath glances wistfully back at the Texaco Cup, which briefly gripped parts of Scotland and the west midlands 

The Texaco Cup will always hold a special place in the hearts of Wolves fans whose team were its first winners, exactly 30 years ago. It marked the beginning of a very successful and eventful era for the club, one which only lasted a couple of years but was loads more fun than supporting them now.

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Dear WSC
I’ve heard some daft excuses for losing matches but Trevor Francis has surpassed even Manchester United’s grey shirts fiasco at Southampton with his moaning over Birmingham’s play-off penalty shoot-out at Preston. Perhaps the poor dear would like to consider the following points. At any ground other than Deepdale there would have been spectators behind both goals, and if the penalties hadn’t been at the Preston end they would have been at the Birmingham end.  Therefore, by his logic, that would be unfair on the Preston players. If Birmingham were a better team than Preston they would have finished above them in the league table, therefore the second leg of their play-off and the penalty shoot-out would have taken place at their own ground. They only finished fifth over 46 league games so they were lucky to have any chance of promotion in the first place. If his players are unnerved by taking penalties in front of opposition fans what chance would they stand of surviving in the Premiership? In a ground filled with paying spectators it makes sense for the deciding moments to take place at the end where most of them will have the best view. Who cares whether the referee or police changed their mind about which end the penalties should be taken? The notion that the whole match should be replayed because of that is absolutely ludicrous. If I was a Birmingham fan I would be embarrassed that the manager could come out with such a lame excuse for defeat instead of accepting that his team was simply not good enough.
Richard Watts, Sydenham 

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Simon Edwards explains how promotion from and relegation to the Conference is not an improvement for the Football League 

The prevailing view of relegation to the Conference from the Nationwide League is that it provides an opportunity for a struggling club to rebuild both on and off the field, and ev­ent­ually return to the fold in rude health. This has always been bunkum. The overall benefits have been negligible.

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