Ref Watch ....... Accrington H

[Mick]

For tomorrow's match when we look for our first win in 5 attempts against Accrington, we have referee Steve Rushton from Stoke. He is one of two current referees whose father was also a Football League referee in years gone by; the other one is rather better.

In his fifth season, he has refereed Southend four times before - the first one being the high scoring defeat at Bristol Rovers four years ago when he cautioned two from each side and sent off Moussa. More recently he did the home match against Wimbledon the season before last which we won 2-0 and once again he cautioned two from each side (Grant and Hall for us). Then he refereed last season's 1-1 draw at Plymouth where Barry Corr was one of his many early season dismissals, although there were few complaints. A yellow apiece in addition to that red.

Finally, and co-incidentally, he refereed Southend at Bradford last Easter (this time Good Friday) in Phil Brown's first match in charge. Finished all square at 2-2 with bookings for Mohsni, Tomlin and Assombalonga and one of theirs.

For the last three years his yellow card count has been the right side of average but this year it is lower than ever with a miserly 43 yellows from 22 matches, which have also seen 4 reds.

His assistants will be Stephen Ross from Boston and Alan Young, the Cambridge FA Referees Development Manager who had a decent game in the middle at Concord yesterday. Lee Betts will be travelling down the A12 from Great Yarmouth to wield the numbers board.

 

[Fish]

Thought he had an OK game yesterday, though I can see why his yellow card count is "miserly".

There we several cynical fouls which merited a yellow card which didn't get one. I had higher hopes for him when he issued the yellow for that tug back on Murphy after just 9 minutes in front of the West, but he seemed to bottle it after that.

One thing that consistently ****es me off is when a referee stops the game (including a good attack) in order to "have a word" with a player, without getting his cards out. Refs don't seemt o realise that all they're doing is completing the job of breaking play down for the team that tried but failed.

 

[Lord Football]

Not sure what you are attempting to say there. Yesterday's ref played some nice advantages, even early on, which was good.

A ref will only stop the game to award a free kick. I don't recall once yesterday where he denied an advantage by stopping the game. As any ref will tell you, we can have a word / show a card when the ball goes out of play.

 

[Wickford Blue]

Can anyone explain to me what all the hoo-hah was over the drop ball incident just before the goal - wasn't concentrating and did not really see what the Accrington players were so upset about!

 

[manor15]

Can anyone explain to me what all the hoo-hah was over the drop ball incident just before the goal - wasn't concentrating and did not really see what the Accrington players were so upset about!

Corr was down with a head injury in the box, we had the ball out wide on the edge of the box, the ref stopped play due to the head injury. The right thing to do seemed to be a drop ball, which is what happened, but Accrington claimed that they agreed to play the ball back to our keeper, which is why they were complaining, but I have no idea where they got the idea that they had the right to do that came from, can only imagine the ref initially said that and then changed his mind.

 

[londonblue]

Corr was down with a head injury in the box, we had the ball out wide on the edge of the box, the ref stopped play due to the head injury. The right thing to do seemed to be a drop ball, which is what happened, but Accrington claimed that they agreed to play the ball back to our keeper, which is why they were complaining, but I have no idea where they got the idea that they had the right to do that came from, can only imagine the ref initially said that and then changed his mind.

Moreover, we were in the final third. How would it be fair for us to start again with Bentley? I'm not surprised they wanted to give the ball back to him. All they wanted to do was relieve some pressure.