Divine Outlook!

It’s the season of goodwill, or at least so I’ve been told, so I thought I’d do a piece on that most maligned subject, referees. There have been no harsher critics of the men in black than myself and the rest of the Sky Blue Sport’s team, but at the end of the day they are a vital part of the game. I’m sure even Linfield fans would agree with that statement, given that a referee accidentally helped them gain their late win at Seaview last Saturday. I say accidentally, as I didn’t see the incident myself, even though there was extensive footage of the game shown on T.V... We at Ballymena have reasons to be thankful to the men in black this season, there was the offside infringement over-ruled in the game at home to Armagh City, which enabled us to salvage a point eventually and who knows how vital that might be come the end of the season. Then in our last two games we were awarded penalties in each, at least one of which seemed fortuitous to say the least, but it’s all down to the referee’s decision on the day. Glentoran defender Kyle Neil felt hard done by on Tuesday night and protested his innocence so vehemently that he earned himself a caution. I’m sure if Kyle really thought about it he’d console himself with the fact that he’s ‘got away with a few decisions’ in his time, so when one goes against you, you have to accept it. The I.F.A. recently recruited 160 people, who completed their referee’s course, but out of that number only 40 will be referees. I can well understand why people are reluctant to take up the job, as the names fans call them (I reluctantly include myself here), is less than respectful and their parentage is called into question repeatedly over 90 minutes. They do say that they rarely hear comments from the crowd as once the game starts they get caught up in the action and are oblivious to the crowd and their comments. Not wanting to call officials liars, I do wonder if this is the case, as I’ve witnessed the referee being influenced by fans allegedly, this season. When the reverse fixture against the Glens was played on the last day of September 2006, referee Adrian McCourt appeared to be influenced by the home crowd in sending off United defender Gordon Simms, when he clearly wasn’t the last defender. But as I said earlier, some you win, some you lose and you have to take it on the chin and get on with it. What we all need to get into perspective is that referees are human and like all humans they make mistakes and as the old saying goes, ‘to err is human and to forgive divine’, so let’s all try hard, to be divine!