Awful. First half. Free kick to us. Marks out 10 yards with his spray, uses 9 steps; draws his line. Gillingham players stand on line, & rub it out as well as they could, then encroach another 2 yards. Probably easy for the ref to miss, but the linesman? Free kick at end of first half .... marked out by 9 and a half paces, but then the ref turns back on himself and draws the line further back. Booking of their player who refused to be booked - sorry, just send him off. He lost the plot.
He must have forgotten that there is a guide for that one, as there is a white marking 10 yards along goal line and his drawn line was inside this!!
Not forgetting the booking the Gills player got on the east stand byline mid way thro the second half for a challenge that was not even a foul. In fact it was probably the best tackle of the game.
I can understand that tbh. Ours were taking their time as we were winning, theirs weren't due to being behind. It's about the only thing about the refs performance I understood though, he made some baffling decisions. No surprise though, he is rank bad.
What I can't understand is everybody in the ground could see how bad this Ref is but he keeps getting games so where is the referees assessors looking.
Their player who walked off and wouldn't be booked, the ref actually got fed up and reached into his pocket for the red to send him off for dissent but then bottled it. Worst ref I've seen in the last few years, for both sides too to be fair
After watching what was probably the dirtiest side I think I've ever seen at Oakwell, I checked the official match stats on the BBC website when I got home: Gillingham: 10 fouls and 2 yellow cards Barnsley: 9 fouls and 3 yellow cards 90 minutes of barging, stamping, shirt pulling, pushing and diving from Gillingham and which team ends up with the most sanctions? Unbelievable!
In the second half the linesman was a quarter of his half behind play. Their player received the ball way off side but the linesman was too far behind to see it. That nearly resulted in a goal for them. As far as the ref was concerned, he was that far up his arse he had no idea it was a football match. He thought it was a show for him.
I'd don't know what those leagues have done to deserve these two. Banished from football would be more appropriate.
