RateTheRef

An artificial pitch, the sort where black rubber confetti appears every time the ball connects with the surface. The way forward for clubs? Seems so.

These pitches seem to exaggerate any work a player puts on the ball. Put any topspin on it, and it beats anything Barnes Wallis came up with. A bit of check, and the ball almost stands still. Yaxley, who play on a similar pitch, ought to have been prepared,  or at least brought a goalkeeper who was!  Three first half goals were down to his major errors in not understanding how the pitch would react. Not that it mattered, it was 8-0 at half time!

Harborough Tn v Yaxley
Score 9:1
Referee: Ashley Allen
Match difficulty 2/5
Entertainment 3/5

I'm a fan of anything TCM put out there. Once a day you can be sure to find " Casablanca". I'm not quite watching it on loop but I could have mistaken the referee for a young Claude Rains. I may watch a little too much television in the afternoons.

An early penalty, correct in all aspects, and little to do except watch the 'keeper find way after way to make the wrong choice. At times it seemed I was watching a struggling Sunday side. At half time, there was a small ripple of applause, but there was little excitement in watching such one way traffic.

I did have concerns that Mr Allen did allow too much protest from Harborough at times ( they were only eight up, think if it were tight?) but there really wasn't much to test him. That's another thing with these pitches, proper tackles seem very rare, and thus much less to ask the best of the referee, or ought I to say, find the better referee!

Mr Assistant (stand side) judgement of offside was certainly different to mine on a few occasions, and the third goal featured a hokey cokey flag (up one moment, down the next) that Mr Allen did not seem to pick up on. Whether Assessor Mr Taylor (I think t'was he, certainly the right area) had more to say on it,  I don't know.

Assuming there weren't any mass brawls to test Mr Allen in the final twenty minutes, he'd be happy with his day at the office. Talkative, genial and there or thereabouts.

Not so sure about his footwear though. A flash of white on each instep reminded me of winged footed Mercury. As Mercury served as an intermediary between gods and mortals, perhaps I'm not too far off!