Different team I think... There are 2 newdigates.
After playing in that league I can quite easily see why a ref would get a slap sometimes. I don't condone it but when you play a heated game and the ref turns up in a car with their manager you know it's not going to be a fair game...
Just to clear up, not all refs but even at that level it is a little bit corrupt...
Again, I am not condoning it.
If you can see why a ref 'gets a slap', then I'm afraid you pretty much are condoning it.
I played at a pretty crap level of football for around twenty years, and managed for a fair bit too. I even had to step in and referee sometimes, mostly because dickheads with no self-control had made the job so miserable (and in some cases dangerous) that no one with a brain would want to do it.
I can say, looking back, that I've never seen a bent referee. I've seen plenty who weren't fit, a few with genuinely poor eyesight, and even the odd one who wasn't quite up on the rules of the game. Never, ever one that deserved a slap though.
I've seen plenty of players that would benefit from a little bit of discipline, mind. The worse ones being those who thought it was always someone else's fault that they were losing.
No ref, no game, is my take on it. Anyone who raises his hands to a ref deserves a properly long ban, followed by an obligatory couple of years behind the whistle to see how it really feels!
picking on a kid....
