- May 22, 2011
- 73,301
- 25,362
- 113
Well, here's the thing. Believe this story if you want or not, but here goes. I work with a train driver from Harrogate who, apart from being an amateur, qualified ref himself, is good friends with Coote. I had a good chat with him yesterday and the one Yorkshireman I know who supports Everton.
Firstly, it's a myth that he's a Uniturd fan. Secondly, although this guy himself says there's absolutely no question at all that Pickford SHOULD have been dismissed, the ****-up was as much down to Oliver as Coote. Why? Well Oliver is held in that much esteem that even his colleagues are reluctant to second-guess him on incidents that they believe he clearly saw. Bizarrely, even though it's one of the main things VAR was introduced for, not many junior refs are comfortable even asking Oliver to review an incident.
So the PGMOL spent days flip-flopping over their story for one main reason - they're loathe to actually admit that their golden boy saw that incident and didn't see it as serious foul play. So they've thrown Coote under the bus, but my workmate, while sneering at his friend's spinelessness, blames Oliver 95% . As he says, no referee, even at his level, needed VAR to tell them that was a sending-off if they had a good sight of it.
Can only take your word for it but whether it’s true or not, we’ve said all along and even before var came in, that referees know each other and how many of them will want to look to overrule their colleagues and say, yeah you ****ed that up, best go change it. They’re going to stick up for each other in any situation where there is even a tiny bit of doubt.
doesnt surprise me that a junior member would feel less comfortable in questioning an older more experienced collleague.
I watch air crash investigation, and the amount of times you see the reasons why and it’s the captain has made a decision that’s wrong but the more junior pilot next to him doesn’t want to question it
