Christleton 1 - 2 Maghull

Saturday 4th November 2006, 14:00 Kickoff


West Cheshire Football League

Christleton 1 - 2 Maghull

Maghull scored in the first half and Christleton equalised in the second half. Due to the many number of second half injuries, time lost, and substitutions, I added five minutes at full-time.

With 4 minutes and 50 seconds played of the added time, a Christleton defender in their own penalty area fouled a Magull player. I immediately signalled a penalty award to Maghull. As you can imagine, I was not very popular with the home players and home support. In fact, I was surrounded by many players who appealled the very late decision. I had to wave theses players away.

The penalty was scored. I again had players running up to me. I had to caution one for clear open dissent.

Maghull had effectively won the game with the very last kick of the game.

Afterwards, I discovered that my assistant referee had also signalled a penalty, the assessor fully backed me with my decision in fact saying that he could not understand why Christleton were complaining about a such obvious penalty.

In the bar several Christleton players came to me and apologied for their outburst confessing that I had been right with my decision to award a penalty against them and it was just clear frustration at the end of the game. One of these players who apologied was the player I had cautioned.

Sometimes as a referee you have to make brave and honest decisions not necessarily popular ones. Today was one of those days...

Referee: Myself (Level 4)
Assistant Referees: Jack Blakemore (Level 5) and Shaun Byrne (Level 5)Assessor: Bob Fernell


I had forgotten to wear my heart rate strap during the first half, so made the decision that it was probably pointless to wear it during the second half.