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The goal that wasn't...

Championship Watford
by WatfordguyMatt (U11051263) 20 September 2008
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I have just come back from the Watford match and am still absolutely livid at Reading's first - I thought it had to cross the line for it to score!

No-one in the stadium had thought it had crossed the line except for the lino - the look of shock on Reading faces!

Absolutely appaling decision - sack those officials!

On another note, Watford were not actually too bad - but we HAVE TO SHOOT!!!! The crowd are getting fed up of watching them trying to walk it into the goal.

Here is the BBC article:
news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foo...

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posted Sep 23, 2008

A sound response from Reading FC. What more can you say?

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posted Sep 23, 2008

I think that this is a very fair response - pretty much what we all expected.

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posted Sep 23, 2008

As a fan of the dreaded enemy, Luton, you might suppose I was amused at the 'goal' scored against you on Saturday. I was, but only because of the absolute absurdity of the decision, you have my full and sincere sympathy! What astonished me was what the asst linesman thought the Reading player was doing apparently kicking the ball out of the goal after it had, apparently, been deflected in by your defender. Surely he would be thumping it in to the back of the net, picking it up and running off to the halfway line with it or something, not trying to 'clear' it off the line! You were mugged by some appalling officiating - not on, even for you!

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posted Sep 23, 2008

Why havn't Bannister or Atwell been sacked?

If any of us made an error of that degree at work we would of been fired.... so why havn't they?

The ref clearly saw the ball go out for a goal kick - and regardless of what the other muppets told him he still gave the goal... why isn't there an inquest taking place? What if he and his his officials had been paid to give Reading a goal that never was?

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posted Sep 23, 2008

why isn't there an inquest taking place? What if he and his his officials had been paid to give Reading a goal that never was?
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There is, as has been clearly reported in all the media.

And I can just imagine the phone call from Steve Coppell 'look mate, we've got no chance against the Mighty Horns so we'll kick the ball wide and you give us a goal anyway...'

He'd have been better off giving us Bikey's legitimate goal - although I suspect Watford paid him to disallow that one !

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posted Sep 23, 2008

Unfortunately the FA are covered with the same protection as MP's, that's you can be completely incompetent and make monumental KoK up's and still get to keep your job!

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posted Sep 23, 2008

All the ball crossed all the line, thats all that matters. Send this referee to Kenilworth Road to help us hatters out of the mire and Parkins score tally will rocket just like us up the league....

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posted Sep 23, 2008

Response from the Football
====
Dear Tom Fullery
Thank you for your email.
Due to the high volume of communications received and to ensure all supporters receive a swift explanation, a standard response is necessary.
The League can only confirm that the decision to award the goal was final – the Laws of the Game give no discretion in these matters and the referee’s decision on both the scoring of goals and the outcome of a match is final and binding.
The Professional Game Match Officials Board – the body responsible for the management and administration of match officials - regret this error of judgement and will now work with the officials concerned to determine how this occurred in an attempt to minimise such mistakes in the future.
Unfortunately, errors of judgement do occur and the media have already highlighted previous examples of ‘goals that never were’ as well as disallowed goals which were later proven by television footage to be valid.
The reason the Laws of the Game are quite explicit in this respect, however, is to ensure that the game doesn’t ‘degenerate’ into anarchy. If the referee wasn’t the final arbiter, it is likely that many decisions would be disputed and the outcome of matches might even be determined in the courtroom rather than on the pitch.
Every club will, from time to time, be on the receiving end of errors of judgement by match officials – but they are only human. We have to work towards raising standards wherever we can but human error will always be with us. We have to accept that sometimes this will militate against us and other times to our benefit. That is the very essence of sporting competition.
Thank you again for contacting The Football League.
Customer Services
The Football League
www.football-league.co.uk

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posted Sep 23, 2008

can't believe that the reading players didn't just say.. 'look mate it wasn't a goal' instead of celibrating when they knew perfectly well it wasn't a goal.. shameful sportsmanship.

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posted Sep 25, 2008

We want the game replayed!!! We should have been 3 up before that 'goal' and the other penalty claim. Oh and the perfectly good goal that was disallowed.

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