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Really interesting take on the first ten games. http://experimental361.com/2014/09/17/c ... -10-games/

This is fascinating. What a labour of love. Well done that man.

I've just been flicking through that. Jolly interesting. We're officially the dirtiest team in the league. Which, since we have about 80% possession in games, seems a bit much.

Matt.

Also found this on Twitter tonight, enjoyed reading it through. Great stuff.

ferrarilover wrote:I've just been flicking through that. Jolly interesting. We're officially the dirtiest team in the league. Which, since we have about 80% possession in games, seems a bit much. Matt.

Yes - I found this an interesting and surprising stat. On the other hand, thinking back to the Southport game when the totally inept ref awarded Southport a free kick whenever one of their players toppled over, it's hardly surprising.

The trouble with stats is that they hide the facts. Have more free kicks been awarded against us because we've had more cr*p refs than most of the other teams ?

I don't think we've had cr*p refs more than anyone else, as they are all shared around. We need to stop making excuses about the refs because they have not got anything against us, millions of fans up and down the country will be whinging about referees being biased against their team and it's based on a couple dodgy decisions. We'll forget the couple dodgy decisions that went our way, of course. Someone else can complain about them.

Why don't we just stop trying to blame the refs for wanting to see us relegated and realise that they're just rubbish at their jobs for all parties involved, not just us.

Or, that it's an incredibly tough job and sometimes they won't get it right, and also, quite often the decisions that they are perceived to have gotten wrong, they got right, but from your angle in the ground, probably after a few pints and with your teams hat on, you might be a biased. Every decision a ref makes goes against somebody and its the nature of the game that fans feel aggrieved when one goes against them. Sometimes the ref makes a shocking decision, and often they get criticised for being arrogant, wanting all the attention etc. Well, I'm sorry, but you'd have to have that type of personality to put yourself in that position in the first place. If I was a ref and received the abuse that they get by both players and fans, I'd have definitely have been sacked for retaliating to it, or intentionally miss a game changing offside etc to get at those abusing me!

If you watch a game as a neutral, it is hilarious how often each set of fans appeal for things and shout at the ref, when he has got it perfectly correct. The problem with a lot of football fans is they don't actually know the rules of the game.

People always say things such as "The standard of reffing at this level is abysmal", yet you here Premiership Managers, players, fans every week complaining about the officials, so therefore if they can't get it right every time at that level, why do we think they can at conference level. The teams we are playing are worse, so it makes sense that the refs will be.

Completely off topic, so sorry about that, but it does irk me.

Also, that article was very interesting, and great to see us scoring so well, proves that our league position isn't a false one.

Okay, okay Cambgull and Kernowgull - I hoist up the white flag !! i am not normally a referee knocker cos I recognise it is the worst job on the pitch but I stand by my post by saying the standard of referee-ing we have seen at Plainmoor this season has been very poor. I know the rules, thank you - and I can also see with my own eyes when a ref is being conned time and time again as the ref for the Southport match was. The ref for the Welling match gave us the softest penalty I have ever seen. If it had been given against us, we'd have been howling. In my opinion, we have had one good ref at Plainmoor so far and that was for the Aldershot match. He let the game flow - most of the time you wouldn't have known he was there. That's the sign of a good ref.

When we were in the Conference the last time, I was working in Exeter. A workmate who was a City fan warned me that I'd have to get used to some very poor refs in the Conference. In actual fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the overall standard of the officials. The ref last Tuesday night had a good first half I thought but lost it in the second half when he gave bizarre decisions against both sides. Dave Thomas of the H.E. is usually very guarded about what he says about refs but even he couldn't hide his frustrations at some of the refs decisions when commentating for Radio Devon on the Lincoln match. If other matches are being equally poorly refereed, then all I can say is the standard of refereeing has fallen alarmingly.

The referees are absolutely shit in this league. From what I have seen or heard they are appalling. We had Brett Huxtable against Nuneaton. I know him personally - he is a buffoon.
We had the imbecile against Chester. The knobhead against Southport who was clueless.
Actually the ref against Woking was even worse.
He mounted a one man campaign against O'Archie - blowing up even when he won the ball fairly, yet didn't give one free kick our favour whilst their centre half was fouling him all night.
Its shocking.

We have the refs for the standard of football we play

SOME of our players will prove themselves good enough to play at football league standard, likewise SOME of the refs will also prove themselves good enough to ref at football league standard

To me the biggest weakness is that the refs are not "wired" up to the linos, meaning that they are unable to communicate to each other like they could in the football league.

In addition a football league ref will get the opportunity to watch the entire match back after a football league game (and they do), something that is rare at Conference level as the footage is just not available in the same way

Latest form table here: http://www.footballformguide.net/form/v ... conference

We're top, Bristol Rovers second...

Interesting stats GS. Important to note that although Bristol Rovers have a good record, their away form is atrocious. Of their last 6 games, 4 of them have been at home and all won. Once their home and away games start to even out, I think we'll see them drop down a little bit on the form tables.