I admit that I haven't had the chance to see a replay of the pen yet, but my initial reaction, and that of those around me was that it shouldn't have been a penalty, yes, no doubt biased because of the colours I wear, and I'd probably have wanted a penalty if roles were reversed (in fact I DID on at least one occasion, that wasn't given), but that was how I saw it without a replay at the time. I felt that we played good football in the first half and deserved to go into half time in front, especially as it felt like if we'd have scored one of those two that were cleared off the line the game would have opened up with Blackpool having to come after us.
Once the penalty had been given of course, the ref could do very little right in the eyes of the crowd, including me, I'm pretty sure all the goals that were disallowed were disallowed by the linesman, so that didn't help him much. added to that was the perception that other decisions were going against us (bookings that weren't deserved for our players, Blackpool players 'getting away with it' plus the old favourite of deciding to pull back for a free kick to us when advantage would have seen us get a shot off at goal, etc.)
That along with Blackpool taking their undeserved (as I saw it at the time) lead and playing with 11 men behind the ball, trying to catch us on the break, as well as time wasting right from the start of the 2nd half added to the frustration that saw me make that initial post.
On reflection, I still feel like we'd have gone on and won if we'd have taken either of those goal line clearances, but we didn't so we didn't deserve to win. Maybe we could have scraped out a draw from the 2nd half on another day but that wasn't to be either.
As for not blaming the officials... I reserve the right to blame the officials, the weather, and even the flipping kitman if I feel like they contributed to lost points Whatever happened to blindly following your team and believing they were the best in the world no matter what!