Yours truly is old enough to remember a day when Bernard Flynn had the ball 90% over the bar in a Leinster SFC encounter with Wicklow when the referee decided to blow for full time and thus the ‘score’ was declared null and void. Luckily for Meath (and the referee) our lads negotiated the replay with consummate ease. The next moment of dodgy directions which can be recalled was in the Leinster SFC of 1995 when Laois were awarded a ‘point’ against Carlow even though Mick Turley’s shot was no more a proper score than was Joe Sheridan’s goal in 2010.
Yes, I am admitting the latter was a horrendous officiating faux pas. That has never been the issue, from my perspective, the bone of contention has always been that the problem (a) wasn’t caused by Meath and (b) absolutely should not have been thrown in their direction as a means of rectifying a mess not of their making.
The above couple of examples might seem a curious starting point for a piece mostly centred on the opening weekend of action in the Premier League, but stay with me here. Both catastrophes would absolutely have been avoided with the availability of video technology to assist match officials.
Ditto Barry Nash in an All Ireland MHC Final some years ago. The reason for mention of all of the above at this juncture is that, rather than solve contentious moments, the inculcation of Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology is quickly and surely destroying soccer. As if the the offside rule wasn’t a big enough pain in the hole in its own right, its Big Brother pal is sending football hurtling towards an irretrievable precipice.
Soon, they will have the game gone completely non-contact and a player will only need to have two nose hairs out of place to be deemed off side.
It only took the formative moments of the first Super Sunday of the season to see football’s new order make a hash of a brilliant game between Crystal Palace and Brentford.
Only minutes in, the home side had a superb free by Eze ruled out owing to a ‘foul’ on a Bees defender. But if what actually happened was a foul they may start giving frees for plastic bags blowing in the wind.
Then, as if Palace weren’t entitled to feel hard done by enough after the Eze incident, with the very impressive Yoane Wissa having put Brentford back in front, Palace were denied a second equaliser – their first being an own goal – when substitute Jordan Ayew’s boot laces were apparently off side. I’m not even joking.
Then, just to put the cherry on top, the misfiring meddlers knocked one off on Chelsea’s Nicholas Jackson for – as far as could be seen from this seat – bursting between two opponents before netting.
God bless them, for a writer they’re the gift that keeps giving.
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