John Coleman doesn’t think the trend in technical area bookings does the game any favours and would love some joy when it comes to penalties.
The Gillingham manager was back on the phone to the head of Football League referees Mike Jones this week after his side were denied a “stonewall penalty” for the second game in succession.
Coleman was baffled by both decisions and also frustrated about picking up a booking after a disagreement with Walsall coach Darren Byfield – the former Gills striker. Both men were cautioned.
The Gills boss said: “We’ve had two games running where we’ve had a stonewall penalty – not my words. They’re the words of the head of referees.
“There’s no guarantee you’ll score those pens, so I’ll never say that that cost us the game, but we were on the ascendancy (at Walsall).
“The lad who committed the transgression was on a yellow card, so we’re smelling blood at that time. I think that would have really deflated their fans as well.
“It was the (challenge) on Elliott Nevitt and you couldn’t get a more clear penalty if you tried.
“It meets every criteria for a penalty and then the only decision the referee should have had to make was ‘is it a yellow?’
“The goalkeeper’s in no man’s land and (the defender’s) booted him on the middle of the shin.
“If it’s a yellow, he’s sending him off as well and then we’d be taking a penalty against 10 men, there’s no guarantee we’d score a penalty.
“They’re the fine margins in football and it’s at all levels of football.”
Coleman also felt they had legitimate calls for a penalty at Barrow last weekend but did counter his disappointment with some empathy towards the officials.
He said: “You look how difficult it is to be a referee and you’ve got to make a split decision.
“Sometimes you’re running at full pace and you’ve got to make a decision in about three seconds.
“I did a talk for the referees about eight or nine weeks ago. One of the things I said was that if you’ve got anyone out of any walk of life outside on a track and you’ve got them to sprint 100 metres, and then give them four maths questions that you had to get right within ten seconds, there’s a good chance that they get a couple of questions wrong.
“They’re getting scrutinised every single week by cameras from all different angles. It’s such a tough job.
“You just have to realise that, at our level, there’s going to be mistakes that are going to get made.
“You’ve just got to hope that you’re in their box enough, so that when the mistake’s made, they’re not catastrophic and that they don’t cost you goals.
“Instead of worrying about referees’ mistakes, you try and eliminate the mistakes that you make yourself and that’s me as a manager, and my players.”
Commenting on the booking at Walsall, he said: “It was a strange one really.
“I’ve come into Gillingham trying to influence what I can influence and not be losing my temper with the officials, which I haven’t done.
“I was very, very cordial with the fourth official, never raised my voice at any stage. I intimated that their player had stood on our player’s leg. It might have been an accident but I think there was a little bit of contact there.
“The fourth official wasn’t paying attention and then one of their staffers took umbrage, that’s a nice word. He called me fat head actually. There’s nothing wrong with that because I’ve got a fat head but all I said was, ‘it’s got nothing to do with you. I’m not talking to him’.
“There was a little bit of heated dialogue, but nothing that couldn’t be managed. In my eyes it was an unnecessary booking for both of us but that’s the way of the world at the moment.
“The amount of yellow cards issued to technical areas has gone off the graph. I’d say it’d be up by 5,000% in the last two years alone. I don’t think it’s making the game any better, that’s for sure.”
