The Voice - Match preview #42: Swindon Town vs Bradford City Saturday 12th April 2025 12:30pm

You mean this fella ....

 

Words fail me…….. Accepting inconsistency in the long term will see football kicked into touch. The vast majority of football fans do not come to watch the referee. They would like consistent professional performance. I certainly do not expect to be talking about the referee’s decisions one week after another. My view the less I notice the referee the better.

 

Come on you simply have to admit that the standard of refs has fallen very badly over the last decade pr so.
You may have the odd games when the ref was at the heart of it but now its odd when you get games that they go unoticed
I mean Saturday was a red all day long so why could another ref not see the same against Crewe ?????

Thats what does your head in that they can have the same decision but one can get it right and one can get it badly wrong ?????

Still when them at the very top who are on good money with the aid of modern technology continue to fook up then what do we thinks gonna happen when it comes to our level ???

Listen we know that there humans but all we need is to simply get basic decisions right instead of getting it badly wrong or trying to make the game all about the ref rather than the 22 players on the pitch

 

The standard of officiating could be improved, but the authorities refuse to do anything about it.

Professionalise the lower leagues, ensure all officials are to a certain fitness standard (the amount of overweight officials is unacceptable) and give a decent wage to incentivise former players to come and be refs. All these would improve reffing standards within a year, to say it's impossible in nonsense.

 

You are talking nonsense now. You were made to look silly by several posters, many have commented about several refs being good recently , have you forgotten those comments or doesn’t it fit your inability to read posts properly . There is nothing wrong with commenting about poor officials likewise praise where praise is due. But dont misrepresent what people say, because you don’t read posts accurately . It’s not the first time as a piece of friendly advice. Take it or leave it .

 

That's the issue though, what you call a 'basic decision' will be argued the exact other way by opposing fans. I can guarantee that had Crewe had their player sent off their fans would be calling it an absolute disgrace and never a red. It's all subjective but we seem to objectify decisions that don't go our way.

 

I am almost certain that 99% of the time when a refereeing performance is praised by one set of fans the other set of fans will go away calling the ref a disgrace. There will never be a time when refereeing standards satisfy supporters. It will never happen.

 

I think the reason standards have dropped, is partly because of the play acting by footballers. It was once denounced in the British leagues, when players from Europe and beyond used to roll around or fall over in a gust of wind. Now our own have been doing it for years and trying to con referees. We’ve all seen Sheperd and Walker going down easily and ridiculously, yet most in the crowd laugh because we know the ref is going to blow. I admire the refs that wave play on and more should do it, but then you have the other extreme where refs blow for any little thing. Damned if they do or damned if they don’t.

Our fans are like every other fanbase in the country. A mixture of those who see everything going against them and those who see the game as it is, but you’ll also get refs who either want to align with the home fans or don’t want to be seen as a homer.

 

Maybe not, but someone posted earlier "I think referees make mistakes all the time but having seen referees make the same mistakes for 30 odd years I don't think they can do any better". My post wasn't about how fans perceive refs, it was to improve the actual standard of refereeing so they don't make so many mistakes (even the best make some).

 

Let's not talk about 'looking silly' on here. Your reputation on here and past record maybe doesn't make you the best person to be throwing around that type of rhetoric.

 

I just think having one bloke making real time guesses (usually obstructed views and poor viewing angles) is never going to garner particularly accurate results. I don't think they can do much better tbh. Ex pros would have the same limitations.

 

The whole concept of inconsistency is an odd one. Fan's debate decisions all the time, they always will. I can show you pretty much any major incident on any given weekend and you can be certain that experts, pundits, message board posters etc will be in disagreement about what the decision should he. I'm confident I could post the Crewe foul on any forum in the country and ask for an opinion and you'd get a mix of red and yellow judgement. Exactly the same with Smith's barge on Shepherd. You'd get some saying it's a red and some saying it's a yellow. If you want referees to always come down on your side of the subjective coin, you'll be waiting a long time.

 

I may have missed it but I've not seen anyone say it was the wrong call, what many have said is it was a stupid and unnecessary tackle, but Smallwood has been making similar challenges all season and referees have waved play on even when the the opposition player has been rolling around trying to influence the referee, Smallwood has had more bad press than the referee.

 

He does has form tbf but that's his worst challenge this season by some measure. I definitely can't remember him making a worse challenge than that in recent memory.

 

Think that opens up another can of worms when it would appear that a lot of refs go all out not to show there bias and get a lot of decisions wrong by trying to prove they are not a homer how many times have these sort of performances gone on over the years ????,
Is it to hard to basically go out and ref the game 50/50 rather than going down that route.
I would say i was rational but some of what i have seen over the years just makes you so angry and you aint talking major decisions here your talking basics.

Was it not the tranmere game when he stopped the game for 2 balls being on the pitch only for the same thing to happen later on in the game and he allows play to go on ????? Come on whatever you say thats basics isnt it and they cant even get that right.

 

Agreed and that was the point I was making. That most posters, even though the decision went against us accepted it was 100% the right call. Ive seen the odd comment suggesting it was a little harsh and not asbad as the one on Pattison the previous week, but I think thats irrelevant. That tackle would be a red 9 times out of 10 imo. The frustration is that there could easily have been a red the other way although it would have obviously been way too late to have had any bearing on the result.

 

You correct British footballers were renowned for fair play at one time, Pierluigi Collins actually saying he enjoyed refereeing British club games and England games, unfortunately play acting has drifted in from abroad and our players are no better, even gesturing to referees the tackle should warrant a yellow or red.
As has been said if the people in charge of our game wanted to eliminate some of the stuff that goes on try and get ex-professionals into refereeing or at least get referees on courses where professionals can teach them what they know from playing the game is a tackle that takes a player out with potential long term injuries, Steven Bains was great as a referee they couldn't hood wink Steve.
One of my own personal grievance's with referees is at corner kicks or free kicks in the area where players are acting like children pushing pulling and the referee gets involved telling them to stop as he's watching, just go into the players dressing room prior to kick off tell them any messing about in the box he will make a call either a penalty or a free kick to the defending team, we're here to watch the game referee not you lecturing players who should know better, just do your job.

 

It's been said in the past by City managers, they believe there have been referees taking games at Valley Parade who make calls at times to show they will not be intimidated by 20/22,000 fans in the stadium, and seeing some of the performances by referees you have to wonder if it has an element of truth in it, the Tranmere game being a good example.

 

I wonder how many away fans support this theory? There's just as much if not more truth in the idea that refs are swayed and influenced by our home support.

 

Agree mate - I've always said that referee's could stop all this lark in a breath. "Right you two, if this continues I'm either going to give a penalty or a free kick, it's up to you"
Trouble is, the ref's today either have no backbone or want to make the game all about them.