The McBurnie Penalty Award

[Ned the Donkey]

Watching as it happened I thought the penalty award was for a push by the defender on McBurnie, who then clatters into the keeper - and had nothing to do with any foul or otherwise by the keeper on McBurnie.

To his, er, credit McBurnie makes the most of any contact from the defender, and flings himself around like a rag doll on ECT which had been shot by a sniper, the ref buys all this, and it's a penalty.

(He used to do this a lot in the Championship, where it was an embarrassing waste of time, but now we're in the Greatest League in the Universe it looks like this sort of amateur dramatics is more effective.)

Only the ref knows but if it was for a foul by the defender this does at least make some sense of the situation.

Or maybe it was for a foul by the keeper and this is all bollocks.

 

[Champagneblade]

The thing with referees is that they have no right to be so high and mighty on such rulings.

An intricate point of law, then yes, by all means, they have the upper hand.

But who shoved who, who went into who with momentum, and therefore who fouled who is just as straight forward to judge for the average match goer than it is for any ref.

If they saw the full incident, which most initial pics didn’t show, they’d be hard pressed to completely ignore Bowen’s part in the last minute altercation.

As for McBurnie, how did he foul their keeper? It was the keeper that came rushing out with a ‘take everything’ approach and he failed. He just managed to collide with the man who was jumping up, not into him. So it’s then just a matter of opinion.

So before Keith Hackett, Dermott Gallagher and Mark Clatternburgh weigh in, it’s worth mentioning that the ref on the day and his two assistant refs thought it was a foul on McBurnie. The two plus VAR officials also didn’t think it was the wrong call either.

So moan all you want, but enough qualified referees thought it was a foul and judged accordingly. I’d also be surprised if there was an apology and just because the keeper got a fat lip doesn’t mean he wasn’t the one fouling; look at Gazza in the Cup final, stretchered off but he who committed the foul.

Anyway, as a colleague of my Dad’s once so eloquently used to put it “fuck ‘em!”

 

[PokerBlade]

He does love to do a dramatic flop when he knows he's never ever going to win the ball. Usually it's when a cross is going three feet over everyone's head and he thinks it might be worth a go. So far no ref has even considered it. But in fairness to him I don't think this one was like that.

I think if it's not given then nobody's crying about it. Still, there's a clear push from the defender, and the goalkeeper charges out without ever having much chance of the ball. Tough luck.