Have the club had

Any response to the two VAR and referee **** ups yet. I notice Keith Hackett who used to head up the refs organisation and is a fowl was in no doubt VAR should have overuled the ref or at least told him to take a second look at both incidents, and yet there seems to have been no official comment unless I missed it.

 

No reason why they would mention it. It got the outcome they wanted.

 

To be honest it is pointless , it is not going to alter anything , you only have to see the penalty decision today in the cup final , the suits that run the game will not want to admit they have got something wrong & will always back each other up , simply forget it & move on .

 

What response would you expect?

 

Direct quote from an FA Spokesperson:

 

Peeing in the wind mate. We're not Man U or Arsenal so they don't give a toss.

 

Reminds me this of when we got relegated in 2018. A mate of mine took to twitter to say we needed a statement from the board about our relegation. I asked him what he wants wanted the statement to say. He didn't know, but said it would be nice if there was one.

 

I think it's just to confirm what we're all feeling. Makes our disappointment & anger justified. Won't change anything though, even in the future. We've already spoke to them previously throughout the season and poor decision after poor decision has continued.

 

We were promoted in 2019.

 

That's the point though really. They could say they're looking into it, demoting the referee, insisting on VAR in every league 1 ground next season, giving us a 10 head start etc. And it won't change anything.

I know it's difficult, but it's time we moved on.

 

As usual mate, you're one step ahead of me

 

I want to hear the reason that it wasn't given as a penalty. I want representatives from the FA,, EFL and the head of the match officials organisation to stand up in public and justify the decision or apologise for it and be made to compensate the club for the failure of their system. Then we can start on the sending off.

 

Good luck. Var worked perfectly it suited the required outcome.

 

As much as I was angry about the failing and the loss there's no way compensation will ever be forthcoming.

There's no way to prove we would have scored the penalty. No way to prove that taking a lead would guarantee a win (Wednesday can win after giving teams 4 goal starts!!).

And if they were to pay compo it would set a precedent that would rapidly become unsustainable.

Rightly or wrongly we lost. If VAR wasn't a thing this would be discussed and written off as one of those decisions the ref got wrong.

That being said the ref should have gone to the monitor to review both decisions.

 

There will be no explanation, as VAR will feel that there’s nothing to explain. Seen some people suggest it’s not a penalty as Kitching wasn’t in control of the ball. This is, imo, nonsense. Means you can just kick your opponent with no consequences. It also meant that Kitching was taken out of play if the ball came in.

As for the red, you’ve basically outlawed the sliding tackle if that’s a red. At no point was Gregory in any danger from what I can see. It was made to look worse in real time by the massive overreaction from Windass and co. But referees are never going to admit to being influenced by stuff like that.

 

Basically VAR said a tackle with contact is fine
(penalty) yet one without any is. (Phillips) but they wanted Wednesday in the championship so it doesn’t matter.

 

I think it’s futile publicly condemning it. We complained all season about the ineptitude of the officials and what did it achieve? We all know just how unfair our season was in terms of refereeing decisions. About five clear penalties waved away, Mads’ dismissal against Bolton, Norwood scoring five goals that were ruled offside, the joke call away at Pompey when we’d scored, the most ridiculous handball on the line at Burton - the list goes on and on.

This is the first time since Monday that I’ve posted about the game on here. I was genuinely shattered by the events of that game. I wasn’t sad. If anything, I felt similarly to a couple of months back when some ***** burgled our home - a feeling of being violated and being able to do nothing to change it.

Not seen too many references to it, but Mads was whacked in the face by a leading arm from that big lump they had up front, within a minute of the game kicking off. By the laws of the game, it’s a red card. Max Watters was dismissed for the same offence a few months earlier. Now, were it a usual fixture, I’d have accepted the ref not seeing it or whatever. But we are at Wembley, there’s VAR. So for it not to even be looked at by Harrington was absolutely incredible.

Fast forward to the foul by Gregory on Kitching. The ref had the perfect view of it, clear as day, 10 yards away with no players blocking him. It’s an obvious foul and penalty. He waves away the protests, but this time we see that Harrington is having a look. Now, the press box at Wembley is directly in line with the edge of that box. So we knew it was a penalty. To a man, about 70 people in there, journos with BFC bias, Wednesday bias and the neutrals - everyone said penalty. I looked at my colleague, we both smiled and he asked me “who’s taking it?”

How Harrington hasn’t asked Robinson to take a look on the monitor, is one of life’s great mysteries. Up there with the Bermuda Triangle.

The Phillips red card I could argue against. It isn’t an intentional foul. He’s clearly gone in to play the ball, but arrived about a quarter of a second too late. We had the momentum at that moment, he’s looking for a big win in a 50/50 duel so it makes sense for him to go in like that. But, he is fractionally late and his trailing leg does impact against Gregory (how ironic) who puts on a Hollywood performance, holding his head for some reason. And, from Robinson’s view, it looks a bad one. So I don’t blame him whatsoever. You could argue again that VAR should ask him to take a look, but there’s only one angle that doesn’t look bad. So yeah, I don’t have much argument with that call.

The last issue I have is with the time added on in the second period of extra time.

The reason for three minutes? Terrible refereeing. Wednesday score an offside goal and it takes them 90 seconds to restart the match. They allow Wednesday to celebrate. It went on forever. And to top it off, another minute of the three added? For Robinson to sort out a clothing issue on Howson, one of his assistants.

I’m not saying any of the decisions were made to intentionally screw Barnsley. But they all did. And the reason it stung so much? We were the better side in spite of all that. We had the better chances. We looked fitter, despite being a man down for 70 minutes. Our keeper pulled off a miracle save. There were a couple of heroic blocks by Mads and Jordan too. Norwood was like a man possessed. It was an epic display. And deserved more than it got. Not saying it deserved a victory. But it didn’t deserve to be defeated by terrible officials.

And that’s my thoughts.

But you know what? As awful a way as it was to lose, I was so proud regardless. And not just of the team. But of the fans.

When we arrived at 11am, the place was awash with Wednesday fans outside the stadium. And inside it, they were clearly outnumbering us. Massively, of course. But there was only one set of fans making the noise. Until they scored the offside goal and then the actual winner, they were silent. It doesn’t mean anything. It clearly doesn’t get you a result. But it made me proud anyway. That moment when the scarves were being waved will live with me forever.

So no, I don’t think there’s a need to publicly complain about it again. That doesn’t mean we won’t. I’ll find out on Monday. But I wouldn’t. And I don’t want an apology or explanation from the EFL or officials either. If the ***** who burgled our home apologised would it make things alright? Would it chuff.

What we should do is use it as extra fuel to ignite another promotion push in eight weeks’ time. Not getting into the transfer nonsense, but the majority of our squad will look the same in August, and there’s players in there who feel just like me, just like you. Players who have been here ages now, in Barnsley terms. Another pre-season under Michael. In what looks a weaker division (let’s be honest, it does ‘look’ like that).

Up the Tykes.

 

One thing I haven't seen anyone mention about the day is that when we lost barnsley fans understandably left pretty quickly. I went pretty much as soon as the whistle blew (not particularly through choice). But as soon as I got outside there stadium there were Wednesday fans wandering around who had clearly left before me and a lot more of them were walking out of the stadium. They'd just won promotion and had a trophy to lift and their piss poor fans were already leaving the ground. Bizarre

 

Yes this was crazy

I’ll be honest I left immediately as the goal went in as I felt physically sick and could not bear to see them celebrate

loads of Wednesday fans outside including one prize cap end walking through our fans down Wembley way towards the ground rubbing our faces in it.