The first A500 derby of the season and (for me) the first sighting of Darren Drysdale at Gresty Road.
Darren is one of the FL's more experienced refs, first appearing in Upton's in 2004. Experienced he might be but his performance in front of a raucous crowd was terribly 'hit and miss'. At times he was fussy and petty, for example with placing free kicks in midfield and requiring the kick off to be re-taken for encroachment. Yet a lot of pushing, grappling and pulling went unpunished which didn't go down well with the fans. After a fairly uneventful first half, Darren struggled to control the game in the second half as it 'hotted' up. Two of the three cautions to Crewe players were fair enough, but the other (the first of the afternoon after an hour's play and right under me) was a 'nothing' challenge and also angered the crowd, particularly set in the context of some earlier crunching challenges which went unpunished. One blatant backpass by a Port Vale player was picked up by the goalie without being penalised, and so it went on. Darren seemed to have been schooled in hand gestures by Mike Dean, and many of them were unnecessarily exaggerated and a throwback to times long past. However, give him his due, I did like his dramatic pointing to all four corners of the ground when cautioning a Port Vale player for a series of fouls. No doubting the reasons for that one! And he was fit!
I was told this morning that the Port Vale winner was 'way offside' and resulted in a bust up between Drysdale and the Crewe manager after the game. I don't know on that one. Rather strangely, Dareen swopped the ARs over at half time and it was Helen Byrne who was at the end where the Vale scored. I thought it was more a question of the Crewe defence falling asleep than offside but the goal was at the far end and I've not yet seen the highlights so cannot really comment. Either way, the 4O Abbas Khan was kept busy until the end of the game!
The better team won and a long winter beckons again for the Alex and their faithful fans. Darren Drysdale cannot be blamed for that but I came away feeling that he could and should have done a lot better