histon! And the ref...

[ambersalamander]

Here is a pleasant little story for you chaps and chapettes.

As we all know, Cambridge City are in deep doo-doo and may be saying goodbye to us at the end of the season

As the horrific truth of the situation came to light, a nice gentleman by the name of Erkan Okay, playing for City's local rivals Histon, thoughtfully decided to perform a diplomatic and cheering gesture to show his support for the cause during the match between the two sides earlier this season. He waited for an appropriate moment (when Histon scored against City, I believe), turned to the Cambridge fans and lifted his Histon shirt to reveal a T-shirt featuring a picture of a tombstone and the charmingly apposite message "RIP Cambridge City" printed thereon.

For some unfathomable reason, the City fans were somewhat upset by this gallant gesture. To cut a long story short, Okay eventually apologised officially to Cambridge City. I had a word with him myself when we played them at home last month, but he went all smarmy and claimed to have been racially abused, which claim I have not been able to find any backup for anywhere, but I can't prove either way. However.

This Saturday just gone, Sutton visited Histon. There was a regrettable event involving a Cambridge City fan, Erkan Okay, the referee and some Histon stewards. Despite the presence of a rather astonishing quantity of beer, I can bring you the bare facts since I was standing very near to this particular Cambridge fan on the terrace. Alcohol and the fact that I am romantically involved with said Cambridge fan may have clouded my judgment slightly, but without embellishment I can tell you that this is what actually happened:

- Cambridge (name withheld in case he doesn't like me mentioning it here!) was incensed by the sight of Erkan Okay and shouted out "So, Erkan, you want my club to DIE, do you?"

- What happened immediately afterwards, nobody is quite sure of, but Cambridge was approached in the bar at half time by a couple of Histon stewards and ejected from the ground.

- The stewards claimed that this ejection was at the request of- hold onto your hats here- the REFEREE

-Apparently, the words "Erkan" and "die" were heard and taken out of context. Funny that Erkan's allowed to say it to Cambridge but Cambridge weren't allowed to say it to him.

What I want to know is: how much right does the referee have to order the ejection of a supporter? I'd have thought that he ought to be more concerned with what was happening ON the pitch.

I'm confused.

Discuss.

[Giggy of Telford]

My Grandad usd to do refereeing and you can eject supporters from the ground, however doing so in this case was just plain stupid.

[frankiegth]

Not quite the same thing but, I was playing a Sunday morning game once and a casual spectator with no connection to either club told the ref he was a disgrace and shouldn't be reffing.

The ref then threatened to abandon the game if the spectator did not leave the touchline. Bearing in mind it was a public park I think that particular ref was well out of order.

[Col ISIHAC.]

frankiegth said:

Not quite the same thing but, I was playing a Sunday morning game once and a casual spectator with no connection to either club told the ref he was a disgrace and shouldn't be reffing.

The ref then threatened to abandon the game if the spectator did not leave the touchline. Bearing in mind it was a public park I think that particular ref was well out of order.

I think we can top that; and get the subject going properly AWOL to boot!

I used to manage a Sunday morning side, and we had quite a rivalry with one pub in particular, but also with the police. We played against the plods in a cup semi. Their manager was a CID three-stripe knobend. No argument.

We trailed 1 - 0 for much of the game, which was quite a bad tempered affair throughout. I manage a bit like Mr Pearce does - and there's no technical area in Sunday football!! I can actually get rather excited about football you know.

After one rather nasty challenge, I was busy telling one of their players what I though of him, as were our subs. Mr Knobend actually threatened to ARREST the lot of us for insulting behaviour! He said it's not nice to insult officers of the law. We countered with accusations of police brutality, at which point he threatened to eject us from the ground if we did not shut up. ;D


Abuse of position or what?

Anyway, we equalised, which pished him off even more and then won the replay, which was as bad tempered as the first game. The man did not shut up for a second. Frequent taunts of "You gonna arrest us today then?" didn't help I suppose, but I did enjoy forcing him to shake hands afterwards ;D

[bonehead]

Going back to my days as Johnny Cash (the man in black) the ref has no power to ban any spectator from watching a game or making any comments he/she wants. If they were allowed to ban fans from making personal comments against officials, the official attendance at the end of many non-league games would be nil!

[ambersalamander]

That comment wasn't against an official anyway...and it wasn't even an insult as far as I could tell, but I do admit that the beer might have caused me to missed something (e.g. the comment being followed by "you c**t" or something similar) but I really don't know and don't think it matters any more!

[J Esaj PRA]

bonehead said:

Going back to my days as Johnny Cash (the man in black) the ref has no power to ban any spectator from watching a game or making any comments he/she wants. If they were allowed to ban fans from making personal comments against officials, the official attendance at the end of many non-league games would be nil!

The referee has responsibility for the safety of the players during a game. He can (in theory) request that spectators be removed by the home club if he feels the safety of the player(s) is in doubt, under threat of abandoning the game. Making remarks that could be considered as threatening might also be considered illegal.

[ambersalamander]

Yeah- against the ground regulations, anyway.

If it was seen to be threatening though, it was misheard.