Mick
Life President
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2003
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For those of you who like omens, or should I say straw clutching, look no further than Saturday’s referee. Only one referee has presided over a Southend League win this season and he has been appointed to Saturday’s match. He was also the referee when we last beat Accrington just over a year ago. What could go wrong ?
Man in charge is the relatively inexperienced third year League referee Antony Coggins from Bicester. He progressed remarkably quickly through the non-league ranks. Just 5 years after refereeing his first kiddies' match he was refereeing in the Conference South and still a teenager. He is now a little over 30 and was previously a teaching assistant.
After just one year in the middle of the Conference Premier (or National League as it is now) he was promoted to the Football League List at the end of the 2016/17 season.
This will be his second Southend away match but he has also taken charge at Roots Hall four times previously. Firstly in 2017/18, as a late replacement in the first round League Cup defeat to Newport, when our defence was run ragged by, yes, Nouble in his 25 minute cameo appearance. Coggins did okay without being totally convincing and the match's two yellows both went to them.
His second visit was for the Fleetwood match in the same season when we lost 2-1 and Wabo got a good run out. Again not totally convincing and again both of the match's yellow cards went to the visitors.
His third match was the last home game of 2017/18. A 0-0 draw, a poor match, poorly refereed, against an overly physical Bristol Rovers team. He seemed out of his depth and only the intervention of a colleague prevented him from allowing one of their players with two yellows to remain on the pitch. He then made a fool of himself over the placement of a corner. There were yellows for Oxley and Kyprianou and two for them, one of which was eventually upgraded to red.
His most recent Southend home match was last season’s 3-0 home victory over Accrington - goals for Mantom, Cox and Robinson and just two yellows for them.
Then came this season’s win at MK Dons. A solitary Kelman goal was enough to clinch our only maximum so far and we picked up 5 yellows in the process: Lennon, Milligan, Hamilton, McLaughlin and Cox. They had one yellow.
So, in 5 Southend matches he has shown 3 yellows to home players and 14 to visiting players !
He had previously been an Assistant Referee at Wembley for the 2016 FA Vase Final. His matches in the National League in his only season there included Braintree's relegation clincher at Aldershot, the high profile Lincoln v Forest Green match and Dagenham's home play-off also against Forest Green. In fact over a third of his matches that season featured Dagenham or Forest Green or both. He appears not to be one to shirk extreme decisions and was roundly condemned for abandoning a match at Macclesfield just after the fog had lifted!
His 16 matches this season have produced a slightly above average 54 yellows, and, on a cautionary note, he hasn’t shown a red card since October 2018.
Assistants are Southend debutant, Robert Atkin from Scunthorpe and Conor Brown, a passionate supporter of Rochdale AFC and employed by Manchester FA as the Referee Duty of Care and Appointments Officer.
Fourth Official is Helen Edwards, previously Helen Byrne, from Merseyside.
Man in charge is the relatively inexperienced third year League referee Antony Coggins from Bicester. He progressed remarkably quickly through the non-league ranks. Just 5 years after refereeing his first kiddies' match he was refereeing in the Conference South and still a teenager. He is now a little over 30 and was previously a teaching assistant.
After just one year in the middle of the Conference Premier (or National League as it is now) he was promoted to the Football League List at the end of the 2016/17 season.
This will be his second Southend away match but he has also taken charge at Roots Hall four times previously. Firstly in 2017/18, as a late replacement in the first round League Cup defeat to Newport, when our defence was run ragged by, yes, Nouble in his 25 minute cameo appearance. Coggins did okay without being totally convincing and the match's two yellows both went to them.
His second visit was for the Fleetwood match in the same season when we lost 2-1 and Wabo got a good run out. Again not totally convincing and again both of the match's yellow cards went to the visitors.
His third match was the last home game of 2017/18. A 0-0 draw, a poor match, poorly refereed, against an overly physical Bristol Rovers team. He seemed out of his depth and only the intervention of a colleague prevented him from allowing one of their players with two yellows to remain on the pitch. He then made a fool of himself over the placement of a corner. There were yellows for Oxley and Kyprianou and two for them, one of which was eventually upgraded to red.
His most recent Southend home match was last season’s 3-0 home victory over Accrington - goals for Mantom, Cox and Robinson and just two yellows for them.
Then came this season’s win at MK Dons. A solitary Kelman goal was enough to clinch our only maximum so far and we picked up 5 yellows in the process: Lennon, Milligan, Hamilton, McLaughlin and Cox. They had one yellow.
So, in 5 Southend matches he has shown 3 yellows to home players and 14 to visiting players !
He had previously been an Assistant Referee at Wembley for the 2016 FA Vase Final. His matches in the National League in his only season there included Braintree's relegation clincher at Aldershot, the high profile Lincoln v Forest Green match and Dagenham's home play-off also against Forest Green. In fact over a third of his matches that season featured Dagenham or Forest Green or both. He appears not to be one to shirk extreme decisions and was roundly condemned for abandoning a match at Macclesfield just after the fog had lifted!
His 16 matches this season have produced a slightly above average 54 yellows, and, on a cautionary note, he hasn’t shown a red card since October 2018.
Assistants are Southend debutant, Robert Atkin from Scunthorpe and Conor Brown, a passionate supporter of Rochdale AFC and employed by Manchester FA as the Referee Duty of Care and Appointments Officer.
Fourth Official is Helen Edwards, previously Helen Byrne, from Merseyside.
