54,321 sold - wws will never die - ***
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New blog if anyone's interested - http://loihistory.wordpress.com/
LOI section on balls.ie - http://balls.ie/league-of-ireland/
When refereeing standards are so consistently poor and people grapple for the reasons it's understandable that conspiracy theories will abound.
When the majority of refs and the majority of premier clubs are from Dublin, its an easy theory for supporters of non-Dublin clubs to arrive at - especially when decisions go against their team. Inevitably most fans get outraged about unfair decisions
against their team, but are very sanguine about dodgy calls in their favour.
There is no doubt in my mind that the likes of Bohs have received more dubious calls in their favour then most. But then a team that has the lions share of possession or has the ball more often in the oppenents box will get the benefit of more calls from the ref.
There may be other factors - like the "Sean Connor" factor, where refs go out on the pitch with a pre-conceived notion of the attitude of one team, and is eager to show he is the "top dog".
There may be many reasons for the high card count and bad decisions, but I doubt if geogrpahy is one of them.
Shocking decision alright, not half as bad though as the one when Avery John punched Jason Byrne (i think) in the cup semis about 10 years ago in front of the ref.
I'm sure if stats were compiled bigger clubs would come out well on top of getting more decisions go there way than not.
"Must you tell me all your secrets when it's hard enough to love you knowing nothing."
http://worddok.blogspot.com
I think you'll find in most immature countries of our size and makeup that there will be a serious "them and us" divide, especially when it comes to sports. In the good old GAA those whose relations are a tad too closely related figure that the dirtiest team in Ireland are the Dubs (this I had a hilarious monologue on a Luas to Tallaght one night with from an Armagh ex-pat), and only last week I had an Athlone fan telling me that this year Delaney went all out to get rid of country clubs because he loves Dublin. Refs in the league are as poor as any other league, they can only do so much and please only some of the people, but Dublin-based refs being against country teams - sure isn't there over 4 million of them against the 1million left around the city - so we need a bit of love!
Alan Kelly refereed an FAI Cup match between Cork and Galway a few seasons back
Kom Igen, FCK...
Have briefly scanned through the thread but i dont think any bias exists among refs its jus that theyre all terrible, really terrible referees. They are that bad that i reckon even if they were trying to show a bias to a certain team that they would still upset that teams fans!!Seriously though, i dont know how many times i come away from Rovers matches thinking jesus that referee was terrible for us and then thinking well actually if i supported the other team i would think he was bad too!!Surely that has to be a bad sign......
I dont no if it becuase we are top of the league but i have found the referees alot better this season than in the last few season
Oh and everything from Dublin is better than anything from the country including our refs, Deal with it
Here on a technicality.
4th officials wreck my head!
Someone has come up with a coping mechanism
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.co...verything.html
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