The9

Unable to spell. Thicko.

I got booked once for a sliding block of a pass which never came, because the guy decided to jump in the air to avoid me, despite me being 4 yards away from him at the time, and fell over. Same ref also booked me for dissent one time in a Sunday match when I was chatting to a defender about the fact we should have had a corner as the ball came off him. The ref just decided that was dissent, even though I didn't even speak to him and the defender was agreeing with me. Mind you the same guy also sent off a team mate of mine for taking a free kick too quickly and then arguing with him about it afterwards. I think he had it in for me, not undermined by him blowing the final whistle once when I was in the box with the ball at my feet - though it would have been my 10th goal of the match, so it wasn't exactly critical. That one was a (Gwent) County game too. The scary thing was that he was in his 70s at the time and last I heard he was still going. A work colleague of mine refs national youth matches and twice in the past few weeks I've had to educate him on changes to the laws from years ago that he was completely unaware of (notably being able to score direct from a kick off and not having to roll the ball its circumference any more, changed around 1997). But yeah, they're all capable of missing dirty off the ball stuff, also had my nose broken by a flagrant, deliberate (apparently as I didn't see it coming) leading elbow and the ref gave a free kick but didn't ok the guy.

I only had to read the title to click off that. The last IFC game ended with an opponent getting a broken leg, that was an accident but it's still miles worse than spitting, which is less serious than punching someone but more serious than a 3 match ban for shoving someone in the face, if you ask me.

Managed to squeeze in a couple more stories about me playing football though. Did I mention I scored 9 goals on that tour?

Programme sellers. People waving their season tickets. Paper season tickets full stop. People banging empty seats. My ex. People singing songs about shiny new boots. Bristol Rovers. Anyone using QJacker. Stewards actually stopping people smoking in the toilets Bus vouchers.

Yeah, the problem with that is that refs aren't medical professionals and could leave themselves open to legal threat if they exacerbate an injury insisting someone leaves the pitch.

They're meant to blow up when the ball is in a neutral area of the pitch, I'd say the ball rolling out for a throw in is a perfect opportunity, but ten seconds earlier it was in midfield with nothing much happening.

Good spot. And Palace and Everton's.

Having had a fairly eventful last couple of seasons at County level involving being headbutted twice, stamped on and punched off the ball, as well as having my knee ligaments and knee cartilage ruined by the kind of tackle whelk mentioned dishing out above, I can confirm I would much rather get spat at, disgusting though it is.

I'm planning on going and taking the wife, hopefully for a couple of weeks but who knows what that might end up being. One thing's for sure, I'll be avoiding England games like the plague.

Ask him if he can wangle me a yellow shirt from the Newcastle away game.

Half and half scarves practically blocked all access to the stadium before the Liverpool match.

I'd be pretty annoyed at that manager of the month award if I was Bury's manager, they won 3 and drew 2, compared to Skates playing a match more and beating the likes of Tranmere, Hartlepool and bottom of form table Exeter.

Mongboard, for all low-intellect forums. Now politically corrected to m-board by its creator. See also m-boarders for forum users. I'd be pushing it to claim that KEN~!!! ever meant Kenwyne Jones to anyone other than me, though.

Here's the Feb 2015 Squad List anyway: http://www.premierleague.com/content/dam/premierleague/site-content/News/publications/squad-lists/premier-league-squad-lists-january-2015.pdf Only 20 players over the age of 21 named. Only 12 non-home grown and we can have 17 of those too. So we've got 5 slots to sign out of contract players that no-one else wants, actually. Just not LOANS. We've named 41 under 21s though, not that we need to. Oh, and they've still got Rodriguez's middle name wrong.

Theoretically if we have space in the squad list (I haven't checked, and that's the main bit) and there's an out-of-contract player available who hasn't already played for 2 other teams this season we could sign someone. But it couldn't be a loan, because the transfer window is closed and Prem sides aren't allowed to loan players in outside the TWs. But I'm pretty sure the kind of players we WANT are not the kind who are still out of contract in March. Nene, who West Ham signed in February, was a 33 year-old out of contract player who'd previously been in playing in Qatar.

I've mentioned this before, but I actually played a match in the US where the game clock was on a scoreboard and ran 45 minutes start to end. No stoppages, no added time (we checked this with the ref when it became clear at half time that he wasn't adding time on), and needless to say, what happened was we got a goal or two up and started killing time any way possible - hoofing the ball miles across the park when putting it out of play, faffing about on goal kicks, free kicks, throw ins, corners, doing our laces up all the time, absolutely anything to reduce the amount of time the opposition might have to mount a comeback (given that we were on Soccer Tour and had to play 6 matches in 9 days). We won 3-1, anyway. It's on video somewhere... One of my personal highlights also happened in the name of timewasting, we were hanging on when 2-1 up in a tournament against some Watford fans, and I managed to get our keeper to pass the ball to me in the left back position (bearing in mind I'm a striker) JUST so I could step inside the box to play it, ensuring a retake and another 15 seconds wasted. We won that one too. And the game where we started with 10 men against the side in second place and just behind us in the table, and spent the first half hour hoofing it as far as possible off the pitch until we got up to the full complement of players. As it turned out the bloke never arrived, and somehow we won 4-1 anyway.

In theiry players ARE allowed to take quick free kicks, provided they ask and the ref is ok - the "ceremonial" as Graham Poll used to call it, isn't meant to happen until he signals that the window for a quick kick is over.

I'm ambivalent about it, just trying to be consistent with my insistence that proximity to the offence should matter. Free kicks around the edge of the area present a bit of a problem too, massive gains to be made, potentally unfairly, by taking a free kick from even 10 yards left or right, never mind anywhere behind the foul.

Also - no substitutions allowed in added time. For anything.

If the refs started enforcing the laws properly there would be much more actual football. Take a throw 10 yards up the pitch? Yellow card. That'll be the last time that happens. Foul throw? I want to see a flag and hear a whistle, give it to the opposition and I hope your manager fines you. Some flexibility is allowed around free kicks but only where the advantage comes from not penalising the attacking side through pedantry, and not where the attacking side massively takes the p155 by taking it from 15 yards away. FWIW I support a rule that teams can take any restart from up to 10 yards BEHIND the point where the infringement or stoppage occurred, but not in front of it. Which should be a yellow card, and shouldn't be a problem if the ref is indicating where the spot of the foul is. The spray and insistence on "ceremonial" free kicks seems to take far too long as well, too many refs have forgotten that attacking teams still have the right to take a quick kick UNTIL they raise their whistle to show the defence is allowed to form a wall and the attacking side has to wait for the next whistle.

There's not THAT much variance in the number of subs used (generally 4-6), and unless there's a serious injury you can expect 1-2 minor stoppages, for which they add on maybe 1-2 minutes tops. I've seen a few 3s, I've seen a 12 on tv too (Newcastle Arsenal maybe? They went over 100 minutes), and I once left a 3pm kick off at 5:10pm for a non-league game back when a 15 minute break was a luxury not a given. Serious injury and playing at Old Trafford under Fergie are the only things that'll take a match past 5 minutes. Persistent timewasting might kill 20 seconds per set piece, but you can guarantee it won't amount to more than 2 minutes in the ref's head. I can only imagine how much time was due to be added in the FA Cup game when Muamba collapsed.

He certainly contributed to it against Palace when Speroni had the ball in his hands.

It's the Premier League, which currently happens to be sponsored by Barclays. Just like it was still the Premier League when it was sponsored by Carling and called the FA Carling Premiership. And for that matter the one season when it was called the Barclaycard Premiership. If you call it the Premier League you literally cannot be wrong. It did used to be called the FA Premier League, prior to the Carling and Barclaycard sponsorships, but the FA part got the boot in 2007 along with the ~ship part of the name.