RateTheRef

One and the same - or so I've always assumed. Mr Dempsey was fairly briefly a Scottish League referee, based in Bishopbriggs, and attracted less than complimentary comment in the press about his pointing, pirouetting and prancing, before moving to Nottinghamshire. I imagine lining offered less scope for his three p's.

I appreciate this post is about Mr Stroud and he did have a poor game. Let’s remember, all refs have bad games and come back from it. We should also remember that the extent of the Tv coverage these days, a slight touch off a player can be seen on screen but not the official and he will get stick for it. Nothing has changed it’s always been this way. Some refs were better than others but their errors weren’t highlighted every game. So I think it’s time we gave them a break. No matter which league or Country, officials will get it wrong. It’s also a game of opinions and the pundits can’t sometimes decide after several slow mo viewings and the ref has one full speed view. We are also pretty good at nominating the future SG1. Mr Hooper hasn’t had a great start, Mr Coote similar. Mr Kavanagh looks like he is settling. Mr Attwel for me still lacks SG1. Mr Friend doesn’t seem interested any more. Mr Mason is not very good !!. Mr Moss is a little better. As for the future stars. Everyone seems to rate Mr Jones as a very. IMHO he is not that class yet. I would like to see him on SG2 for another season. Saw him make some poor decisions the other day. So nobody is perfect. Oh except for Mr Kettle who I would promote immediately, sit back and watch. One last one. Promote Mr Breakspear and teach some more senior refs it is within the Laws of the Game for them to use their red card if it’s not sewn into their pockets. Send a few off for the foul language to match officials that the law requires. Maybe then the on pitch respect might get a little closer to that shown in some other sports.
Rant over.

Jim Parker from Preston....certainly and it would also be instructive to see how someone like Malcolm Sinclair ( in his pomp ) would fare in today's climate. It's been a long, long while since I saw a leather watch strap fished out from a shirt pocket. In a funny sort of way, Keith Stroud rather reminds me a bit of Sinclair. Both vertically challenged and on the borderline of strict/fussy

The earlier Keith Stroud got away with borderline strict/fussy because he was usually correct with most of his decisions and viewed as a safe pair of hands for tricky matches.

Today's Keith Stroud is simply making far too many mistakes.

Jim Parker from Preston....certainly and it would also be instructive to see how someone like Malcolm Sinclair ( in his pomp ) would fare in today's climate. It's been a long, long while since I saw a leather watch strap fished out from a shirt pocket. In a funny sort of way, Keith Stroud rather reminds me a bit of Sinclair. Both vertically challenged and on the borderline of strict/fussy

  I think Whistleblower and I have previously debated the strengths and weaknesses of Mr Sinclair.  However I must to an extent disagree here as, although I was never the greatest fan of the Guildford brickie, I think to bracket him with Mr. Stroud does him something of an injustice.  Malcolm was, in my  opinion over fussy and over strict in the days when it was far from fashionable but I believe nevertheless he was a very competent official which, sadly, is not how I would describe the Mr Stroud of today. 

I should add that I well remember the leather watchstrap, unique I think to this official, on the end of which was the large pocket stopwatch which I am sure Malcolm meticulously stopped and started in order to calculate, rather than guess (as is usually done today), the amount of stoppage time to be added. Bring back the watchstrap and pocket chronometer, I say.

Can you enlighten us about Harry Dempsey (I'm assuming it was during his Grade 1 stint North of the Border)?

Can you enlighten us about Harry Dempsey (I'm assuming it was during his Grade 1 stint North of the Border)?

Would that be the same Harry Dempsey who once held the role of the RA's auditor ?

I’m usually a big fan of Keith Stroud and still think to this day he was the most unluckiest referee ever to be demoted from the Select Group. It was so unfair.

However, I can only describe this performance in a few words... “Poor and enept throughout!”

I couldn’t believe how bad and consistent his decisions were for the whole game rather than just during for one period!

But, he’s shown he can come back from disasters so I still have a lot of faith in him.

You're correct, he was very unlucky to be dropped from SG1 at the time.

Unfortunately he's spent the last couple of years working really hard at proving those who dropped him right !