RateTheRef

Shocking decision to award a freekick against Romania just as they were breaking. I wouldn't expect that in Conference League North !!!

Hopefully it will be another 2 years or preferably more before he referees us again. That will be my only comment.

Some people are quite close to being banned, mentioning no names.

I used to sin bin players when I refereed fan's matches and it was extremely effective. I think it would work well at grass roots level because you can lay down a marker early on and for me, it made the game easier to referee.

Leeds Utd's injury time equaliser was interesting as a Cardiff defender was almost completely off the pitch apart from his hands which I assume ruled out any question of offside. However my question is if the Cardiff player had been completely off the pitch, would that have brought offside into play? I am fairly sure the Leeds Utd goal scorer would have been offside if the aforementioned defender was sat on his arse further up the field. 

So according to this thread, he was 10 yards offside, 6 yards offside, level and now behind the ball.

What chance do us mere mortals have when a former Premier League Referee and professional pundit says that is offside yet @rustyref (who I believe is still a current referee and around level 3) gives an opposing opinion?

Ref: Richard Holmes (correction)
Match: York City vs Guiseley
Date: 28/12/2020

Decided to visit Bootham Crescent for possibly the last time this afternoon as York City will shortly be vacating this ground for a new stadium built on the edge of town. I won't define "shortly" because the saga of the ground move has been going on for well over 15 years and the new stadium was apparently weeks from completion around 3 years ago.

Anyhow onto the game and I thought Mr Holmes on the whole had quite a reasonable game but have one very big grumble about his first half performance and that was the away team's blatant time wasting. It wasn't even subtle with thrown-ins were taking over 20secs and goal-kicks nearly double that !!! It wouldn't have been a problem if the referee had added on time but I felt distinctly short changed with just a single minute of additional time was added at the end of the first 45 minutes. However his decision making on fouls was almost spot-on (one poor decision early-on) as was getting the throw-ins correctly awarded too. The goal came from a freekick as York City scored with what seemed a well engineered near post routine.   

Second 45 minutes with Guiseley now 1-0 down, the game definitely became a better spectacle (oddly enough no timewasting !!) but Guiseley didn't help themselves by quickly going down to 10 men. Their front man had already received a YC in the first half for dissent when he went in very late (on our No.7) and gave the ref no option but to show a second yellow. The dissent was something akin to 10 year old having a tantrum and Mr Holmes was at first quite lenient but the guy just wouldn't shut up so got exactly what he deserved. Couple of poor tackles, 1 per side also saw YCs and there may have been another given to our No.9 for persistent offending but my glasses were forever misting up so was giving them quick wipe when that did or did not happen.

Overall a decent enough performance and the Main Stand assistant also had a sound game.