In last Sunday's Merseyside derby, Rob Styles went for the tolerant, "we're all adults here" approach to refereeing, choosing to have quiet words with transgressing players instead of enforcing the letter of the law. Until he produced a straight red for Milan Baros, that is.
That Baros deserved a straight red is not in doubt, and to argue that he didn't would take away from valid criticisms that need to be made about the refereeing of the game. In light of Styles' policy of leniency until that point, it is hardly surprising (and very pleasing) that Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez refused to isolate the Baros incident from the wider context of the game and heavily criticize the player, deciding instead to point to the double standards he saw in operation in how Styles refereed the game. Baros rightly should have walked, but so too should Tony Hibbert, who, as a result of Styles' policy of selective leniency, received a quiet word instead of a yellow card for one of his barkingly bookable offences. And Duncan Ferguson walking off that pitch without a yellow card should be baffling to everyone who saw his usual display of vicious elbows and simian verbal abuse. Treating a monkey as a diplomat won't make that monkey a diplomat. And being nice to Duncan Ferguson won't make Duncan Ferguson a nice man.
I know from personal experience that refereeing is a thankless task, but on Sunday the only point both sets of fans could agree on was that the referee didn't do his job. And that's poor for a professional referee. David Moyes of Everton complained his players were not protected (which is laughable considering those said players spent most of the match trying to maim the Liverpool team). More justifiably, he questioned the mere three minutes of stoppage time the referee allowed in the second half. Of course, Liverpool could just as easily decry the lack of stoppage time in the first half when Everton looked like a bemused and baffled park football team who'd stayed up drinking until the early hours of the morning before.
The lesson to be learned is not complicated. The softly-softly approach to refereeing cannot be applied in the frenzied, volatile atmosphere of a local derby with 15 million pounds at stake. It may be nice to be nice, but if you're going to be nice, you have to be so consistently. And being consistently nice is almost never practical, especially in local derbies.
Forget the obvious consequence: four Liverpool injuries. I'd even argue that the well-meaning but incompetent refereeing was a contributing factor in the post-game unrest, and the 54 arrests.
Posted by Setsunai at March 24, 2005 11:08 AM | TrackBack