Quote Originally Posted by Hazza Has A Gazza View Post
Everyone must have noticed how the standard of officiating has declined over the last few years? Yesterday's ref and his linesman on the East Stand side were prime examples of the tripe coming off the modern refereeing conveyor belt. We're mot getting poor officials every now and then as it used to be, its virtually every game. Is this the standard now? I've never seen so many poor decisions on a weekly basis.
We do tend to notice more when we lose, and I'm not blaming the officials for our team losing to Wycombe although their goal had more than a hint of offside, but these new generation refs are making the likes of Trevor Kettle, Graham Poll, Andy D'Urso etc look competent.

Is it collect 10 crisp packets to become a referee these days or what?
In what way do you mean poor decisions Hazza, because trust me, no other referee in the world could make Trevor Kettle look competent. I went reffing after I stopped playing and stopped reffing in the early 2000''s so I do understand a little bit the difficulties of doing the job.
When I go to watch the millers (didn't go yesterday) I am usually having a go at the officials but then I go on the other teams website, and usually they are having a go at the officials too, but surely both sets of supporters can't be right that they were poor for both sides?
I also think that the changes in the rules in recent time's, especially the offside laws whereby players are active or not active in certain areas has made it hard to judge at times, but I'm not knocking the rule changes either because whilst it was easier to say if you're offside you're given offside, there were some cracking goals disallowed just because someone out on the wing was standing in a certain position.
Anyway I personally think that all supporters of all clubs will always see fouls on their own teams players but never the other way for similar fouls on the opposing teams players, and even though I'm sticking up for officials a little, I have come away from a match absolutely castigating the officials so I do think you have a point in maybe when we lose the officials seem worse than if we win or draw.