I'm excluding the Barton incident because that's heavy enough to be a totally different subject and I am not defending him here. My problem yesterday was that QPR are obviously not renowned for being an over-physical, aggressive, bullying team and it was clear that QPR did not have the intention to be that way in the game yesterday. They approached the game without all of that, which should have been detected by the referee. Instead, the referee was penalising us left right and centre as if we were such a team or playing such a game. Sadly, Norwich were playing such a game. Now, like I said, I am not talking about the gesture in the Barton incident. I am talking about the ceasless elbows, knees and shoulders into the backs of QPR players throughout the game and the heavy tackles or heavy barging to win the ball, which largely seemed to go unnoticed by the referee. To clarify, the aggressive team were not penalised and the non-aggressive team were throughout. I recall Heider Hulguson getting a yellow but in the same game was hit hard on the head by an elbow of a Norwich player which went totally unnoticed. If Barton had only been given a yellow and finished the match on the pitch, I still would have felt that the wool was pulled over the eyes of the referee for large parts of the game because Norwich applied their aggression in covert ways. I would like to finish off by asking that people only reply seriously. So please, no supporters of other teams posting anything but serious, well thought out replies.
The rules are set out...you can do anything "within the rules", so it doesn't matter if one team is aggressive and one isn't. The ref will only penalise a person who steps over the line. Sometimes the aggressive player oversteps the line and is penalised, other times a non aggressive team will invite a foul. It is tortoise and hares ....the ref can only referee the match to the rules....and then there is cheating, doing things that the ref cannot see....but that applies to both sorts of play (the sly kick, the feigning injury, going down to easily). It is not easy being a ref.
I completely agree, this is what I was trying to say, in the 2nd half he was a bit better but the 1st half was atrocious, its as if he was just trying to turn every decision their way at times and I haven't been more convinced by a conspiracy like that as i was at half-time! obviously he wasn't bribed and it was probably a very strange coincidence but i really felt they got very lucky indeed on some of their decisions.
My argument is that Norwich players were stepping over the line on a number of occasions and were not getting noticed but QPR players were getting penalised for weak decisions. I'm not saying QPR didn't make one bad tackle but we didn't deserve all of those free kicks against and yellow cards. Norwich deserved more free kicks against and yellow cards than they got, in my opinion. I remember thinking at the match "my god, the referee is being inconsistent". He was giving free kicks for things that the Norwich players were getting away with. Arguing that it's not easy being a ref makes a bigger case for them to get some sort of help, such as video technology being used.
I thought the referee started out letting a lot go to keep the game moving probably, mostly this went in Norwich's favour as you write Jim - they were doing most of the fouling. But he let it get out of hand - he was talking hard to players (Norwich) who should have had yellow cards - and he should have blown his whistle before Joey got face to face with that Canary C*nt.
The ref simply looked completely out of his depth. From the moment he didn't book the Norwich player for the late tackle on Barton (he played advantage and then just gave the player a talking to) he had lost the game.
It did feel like Norwich were happy to do it all game long and take a yellow card here and there, but as they weren't getting that they were having a field day.
Ref after allowing the advantage is able to go back to any player that comitted the offence and show an appropiate card...Collina (Italian ex referee) always used to dish out cards early in rough house games to set a warning to players to cut out the nasty stuff. Stan
