One Game at a Time: You’re Only Here for the Pasties
Stoke City (H) December 2nd
How perfect that in a week when the IFAB decided what the game needed was more VAR, but less delays in implementing on field decisions, Argyle should come out on the wrong side of a seemingly dreadful call.
In truth there was no reason why the standard of officiating should be any higher than the standard of football offered by two toothless sides who seemed hell bent on a nil nil draw, until the fateful moment which allowed Haji Wright a chance to silence his many critics in the Coventry City ranks. As our own Tyreik Wright can doubtless confirm such critical relief will be temporary at best.
With the IFAB now proposing trialling sin bins for fouls as well as extending the remit of VAR to cover corners, and yet another tinkering with the handball rules that no-one any longer understands, least of all it seems match officials, I think fans have to make a choice on what kind of game they want to be watching, and, perhaps more importantly, how long for.
Other sports have introduced video-based reviews with less drama and furore than the VAR experiment. Cricket has its DRS system that retains some jeopardy for the side appealing in that they have a finite number of reviews. Hence a missed review can prove expensive (notably Ben Stokes at Headingly during his epic innings who may or may not have been plum LBW but Tim Paine and Pat Cummins had burned their last life the previous over). The process is regulated and transparent and the use of it controlled by the players (other than umpire reviews for run outs/stumpings) and all sides accept it as, if not perfect, at least better than the unassisted umpiring errors that are otherwise inevitable in a game of fine margins.
Rugby Union also has a review system, which is again transparent and there to assist the referee and his line judges, but which is starting to become more intrusive as, naturally, referees and their off-field eye in the sky try to make sure that the correct decision is made. It starts with an on-field decision which is then reviewed. Controversy is starting to stalk this as, in the recent World Cup Final, a decision to rule out a potentially decisive All Black score, was reviewed despite the incident being several phases back in the play, with the maximum under the guidelines being only two phases.
And there is the rub. The purpose of these systems is to correct factual errors. The phrase clear and obvious is bandied around. It is not there to re-referee the game, and yet more and more that is what is happening. Players no longer celebrate goals as every goal is checked to make sure an errant toe, elbow, or in the case of Cuccarella at Chelsea, some of his verdant locks, are not inadvertently straying into an offside position.
In this spectators’ eyes, if it takes five minutes of line drawing and angle selecting, then the decision is not clearly and obviously wrong. Likewise, if you need to view a foul from five different angles, in slow motion, then clearly and obviously wrong, it cannot be.
The officials, now they have the tools, will use them, And use them. And use them. Yet still we have appalling mistakes, with just a change in who carries the can. Even the goal-line technology which everyone agrees works pretty well got a horrendous one wrong at Villa Park when a clear Sheffield United goal was ruled out the last time they briefly graced the EPL.
The Argyle incident, was, in real time probably out of play. The linesman should have got it right, but he didn’t. They didn’t however, cheat. There was no deliberate decision to get it wrong. Neither was it the most horrendous piece of refereeing featuring Argyle. Rudden’s basketball attempt that ended in a goal against Orient was worse, alongside other more famous Argyle handballs. Interestingly there was a large amount of criticism aimed at Tyreik Wright for his poor tackle, except that, if as claimed the ball was clearly out, his intervention actually regained Argyle possession through a goal kick. So, in fact he did his job.
Harold Macmillan, the Tory PM was once asked by the journalist Adam Raphael, what trouble him most about his Premiership. His response of “Events, dear boy, events.” It is a natural consequence of sport that there will contentious interpretation of events. Otherwise, why bother with a referee at all? Technology does some things well and others, usually those that rely on human intervention and interpretation, badly. The more VAR we have the less I find myself caring if they got the decision right in the end, because sport needs jeopardy, and having human decision-making means that jeopardy is more tolerable than an incessant need for everything being correct, no matter what the cost.
One final point in favour of less VAR.
Sam Cosgrove’s midweek winner for Barnsley against Why-come.
In a VAR world that goal probably gets ruled out. On that basis alone therefore, VAR should be treated like ULEZ cameras in South East London.
If Argyle left the CBS Arena feeling decidedly humbuggish, they do at least get to start the festive month of December with the home comforts against the bell weather side of the Championship, Stoke City. The traditional measure of a players’ quality has been distilled down to “but can he do it on a cold Tuesday in Stoke?’, particularly when applied to sides like Arsenal, who, by and large, couldn’t.
Argyle too in the past know that feeling, their record defeat still being a 9-0 drubbing at the old Victoria ground. At home however, whilst historically still a side that would fancy a result Stoke will be looking for a first win at Home Park for just under forty years. The fact that Argyle, should they get a result at the Brittania will be breaking a hoodoo that has lasted a hundred and ten years is mere detail.
Overlooking the dubious age claims of Crystal Palace we covered in an earlier OGAAT, Stoke have a good claim to be the second oldest professional club in the country, being formed in 1863 by former Charterhouse schoolmates who were apprenticed to the local railway company, as Stoke Ramblers. It took them five more years until they actually played a recorded game, and that was a fifteen aside affair, and they continued playing friendlies until the formation in 1877 of the Staffordshire Cup, which they entered and won in its first season.
They retained the cup the following season, and, having merged with another side, Stoke Victoria , became known as Stoke ( the City was only appended when Stoke received City status in 1925) and competed in the FA Cup, until , in part driven by their manager the Football league was established in 1888, with Stoke as one of the founder members. They finished last in the first two seasons and having failed to gain re-election were replaced by Sunderland. This was to cause Stoke a problem when they were rejoining the exapanded League a few years later. The League had a rule that only one side could wear a particular strip, and as their replacements, Sunderland were wearing red and white stripe, Stoke were forced to change theirs.
Stoke then had severe financial difficulties and were liquidated in 1908. Several local businessmen rallied round, and, purchasing the Victoria Ground, set about reconstituting the club. They re-joined the League in 1919 after the Great War, by which time the rule regarding club colours was rescinded and the traditional red and white stripes were restored.
Argyle had played Stoke by then as the Staffordshire side fielded two teams in its non-league years, one of which was in, bizarrely, the Southern League. Honours were even in the first season, both sides winning at home, but in 1912/13 goals by Bertie Bowler and Jack Bell gave Argyle their first (and so far, only) win at Stoke.
Until the 1930’s Stoke were the very definition of a yo-yo club , but in that decade the club gave a debut to a young Handley lad, who was to become their most famous player of all time, Stanley Matthews. By the end of the decade Matthews known as the Wizard of the dribble, was an established international , and although his greatest club triumph was when playing for Blackpool in the Cup Final that bears his name, he was to return to Stoke to play which he did until in 50’s. He won the inaugural Footballer of the Year Award, and then, aged 48 won it again, the oldest ever winner ( and likely to remain so). He never managed Stoke, although he did have a stint at Port Vale. The only other club he played for beside Stoke and Blackpool were two loan spells at Canadian side Toronto City, where he played his final game.
A teetotal vegetarian, his natural fitness allowed him to play to an age far beyond the norm, although his manager did bring in a.defensive player to act as his “minder” on field in the latter years of his Stoke career. He was however apparently one of the early dopers of the game, when in 1946, on England duty and feeling under the weather, he was given some amphetemines of the type used by the Luftwaffe to help their flight crews stay alert on their missions over England. He returned to turn in a man of the match performance for Stoke, and allegedly only queried the drugs he had been given when, later that night, and still full of energy, he found himself raking his neighbours leaves in the middle of the night.
Matthews and Stoke had had a narrow escape in 1939 when the club was planning a preseason tour. Their chosen country to visit was Poland, but the manager, showing a tad more decisiveness than Neville Chamberlain, decided not to travel. Matthews was already showing signs of wanting to leave to further his career. In 1938 the Kings Hall hosted a meeting of 3,000 people (and as many again outside), trying to, successfully on this occasion, persuade Matthews to stay.
Matthews moved on just before the end of the 1946/7 season. The fifties were a barren period for the club, but the early 1960’s saw the arrival of Tony Waddington as manager. He signed the future World Cup winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks, who remained at the club until 1972, when he lost an eye in a car accident. City won their only substantial trophy in 1972, winning the League Cup.
Waddington, the clubs longest serving manager, was to then sign another England keeper, Peter Shilton and his 1974/5 team challenged flickeringly for the League title before falling away behind Derby County.
In League terms that was a s good as it got for the club, and after Waddingtons retirement the club has vascillated between the Premier League and Championship, with one small diversion into the third tier. Briefly owned by an Icelandic group, in those years when Iceland seem to have all the money in the world, eventually the club was bought hy local businessman and fan Peter Coates, whose family own the club to this day. It was he who moved the side to a purpose built stadium, The Brittania, and who appointed a manager later to have Argyle connections (not Gary Megson whose stint was all too brief in charge) but Tony Pulis.
It was Pulis, who over his two spells in charge, split only by his time at Home Park, who did more to create the ethos of Stoke as a had to beat defensively strong side., In 2004/5 season he had a remarkable run of 17 games (including a nil nil at Home Park) that led to the season being called the Binary Season as Stoke went on a run of seventeen games where the scores were either 0-0, 1-0 or 0-1. After falling out with his Icelandic Chairman, Pulis left, and his stint at Argyle was remembered for his imbuing a defensive sturdiness that allowed Argyle to retain the second tier status. Indeed , assisted By David Kemp, the former Argyle marksman, the club resisted the approach at then end of 2006 from the new Stoke owner Peter Coates, to tempt Pulis back, but eventually he did return and his second spell saw a promotion back to premier League status for the club.
Pulis built a side based around giants like Huth and Shawcross, the long throw of the almost international javelin thrower Rory Delap and a cussedness that drove some opponents to distraction. Dom Matteo recalls a game where Arsene Wenger angrily paced out the pitch, convinced Stoke had reduced it to illegal levels to facilitate their long throws. Of course the fact Arsenal played on a massive billiard table pitch to suit their playing style was fine, but that Stoke should reduce their pitch size to suit their style….outrageous.
Living rent free in the Arsenal bosses head meant that one season, for the first time ever, Arsenal rehearsed long throw defending for the week prior to their trip to the Britannia. Only to arrive and find Delap was on the bench.
After taking Stoke to Europe, Pulis eventually was replaced by fellow Welshman Mark Hughes, and Stoke had their most consistent period but in 2018 returned to the Championship where they have remained ever since.
Last season saw the arrival, somewhat surprisingly of Sunderland boss Alex Neill, and he has overseen a wholesale reimagining of the squad which to date has had mixed results and sit just above Argyle points wise.
Argyle, who lost to Stoke at the beginning of their last Trophy win, the 73/4 Watney Cup, a cup they technically still hold as this was its final season, will hope to have Hardie back in the squad to reinforce the goal threat.
Stoke, minus Enda Stephens who contrived to get the two softest bookings in history just to avoid having to mark Morgan Whittaker, arrive in poor form, having finally broken QPR’s streak of failing to win at Loftus Road for some eight months, despite leading when down to ten men.
Both managers will need a reaction from their teams after disappointment on the road.
It is worth remembering though, should Argyle grab a win from the penalty spot, or from an injury time winner, that both these innovations to the game were brought about by Stoke City in the 1880’s.
To the best of my knowledge however , we cannot blame them for VAR.
COYG!!!!!!!
Stoke City (H) December 2nd
How perfect that in a week when the IFAB decided what the game needed was more VAR, but less delays in implementing on field decisions, Argyle should come out on the wrong side of a seemingly dreadful call.
In truth there was no reason why the standard of officiating should be any higher than the standard of football offered by two toothless sides who seemed hell bent on a nil nil draw, until the fateful moment which allowed Haji Wright a chance to silence his many critics in the Coventry City ranks. As our own Tyreik Wright can doubtless confirm such critical relief will be temporary at best.
With the IFAB now proposing trialling sin bins for fouls as well as extending the remit of VAR to cover corners, and yet another tinkering with the handball rules that no-one any longer understands, least of all it seems match officials, I think fans have to make a choice on what kind of game they want to be watching, and, perhaps more importantly, how long for.
Other sports have introduced video-based reviews with less drama and furore than the VAR experiment. Cricket has its DRS system that retains some jeopardy for the side appealing in that they have a finite number of reviews. Hence a missed review can prove expensive (notably Ben Stokes at Headingly during his epic innings who may or may not have been plum LBW but Tim Paine and Pat Cummins had burned their last life the previous over). The process is regulated and transparent and the use of it controlled by the players (other than umpire reviews for run outs/stumpings) and all sides accept it as, if not perfect, at least better than the unassisted umpiring errors that are otherwise inevitable in a game of fine margins.
Rugby Union also has a review system, which is again transparent and there to assist the referee and his line judges, but which is starting to become more intrusive as, naturally, referees and their off-field eye in the sky try to make sure that the correct decision is made. It starts with an on-field decision which is then reviewed. Controversy is starting to stalk this as, in the recent World Cup Final, a decision to rule out a potentially decisive All Black score, was reviewed despite the incident being several phases back in the play, with the maximum under the guidelines being only two phases.
And there is the rub. The purpose of these systems is to correct factual errors. The phrase clear and obvious is bandied around. It is not there to re-referee the game, and yet more and more that is what is happening. Players no longer celebrate goals as every goal is checked to make sure an errant toe, elbow, or in the case of Cuccarella at Chelsea, some of his verdant locks, are not inadvertently straying into an offside position.
In this spectators’ eyes, if it takes five minutes of line drawing and angle selecting, then the decision is not clearly and obviously wrong. Likewise, if you need to view a foul from five different angles, in slow motion, then clearly and obviously wrong, it cannot be.
The officials, now they have the tools, will use them, And use them. And use them. Yet still we have appalling mistakes, with just a change in who carries the can. Even the goal-line technology which everyone agrees works pretty well got a horrendous one wrong at Villa Park when a clear Sheffield United goal was ruled out the last time they briefly graced the EPL.
The Argyle incident, was, in real time probably out of play. The linesman should have got it right, but he didn’t. They didn’t however, cheat. There was no deliberate decision to get it wrong. Neither was it the most horrendous piece of refereeing featuring Argyle. Rudden’s basketball attempt that ended in a goal against Orient was worse, alongside other more famous Argyle handballs. Interestingly there was a large amount of criticism aimed at Tyreik Wright for his poor tackle, except that, if as claimed the ball was clearly out, his intervention actually regained Argyle possession through a goal kick. So, in fact he did his job.
Harold Macmillan, the Tory PM was once asked by the journalist Adam Raphael, what trouble him most about his Premiership. His response of “Events, dear boy, events.” It is a natural consequence of sport that there will contentious interpretation of events. Otherwise, why bother with a referee at all? Technology does some things well and others, usually those that rely on human intervention and interpretation, badly. The more VAR we have the less I find myself caring if they got the decision right in the end, because sport needs jeopardy, and having human decision-making means that jeopardy is more tolerable than an incessant need for everything being correct, no matter what the cost.
One final point in favour of less VAR.
Sam Cosgrove’s midweek winner for Barnsley against Why-come.
In a VAR world that goal probably gets ruled out. On that basis alone therefore, VAR should be treated like ULEZ cameras in South East London.
If Argyle left the CBS Arena feeling decidedly humbuggish, they do at least get to start the festive month of December with the home comforts against the bell weather side of the Championship, Stoke City. The traditional measure of a players’ quality has been distilled down to “but can he do it on a cold Tuesday in Stoke?’, particularly when applied to sides like Arsenal, who, by and large, couldn’t.
Argyle too in the past know that feeling, their record defeat still being a 9-0 drubbing at the old Victoria ground. At home however, whilst historically still a side that would fancy a result Stoke will be looking for a first win at Home Park for just under forty years. The fact that Argyle, should they get a result at the Brittania will be breaking a hoodoo that has lasted a hundred and ten years is mere detail.
Overlooking the dubious age claims of Crystal Palace we covered in an earlier OGAAT, Stoke have a good claim to be the second oldest professional club in the country, being formed in 1863 by former Charterhouse schoolmates who were apprenticed to the local railway company, as Stoke Ramblers. It took them five more years until they actually played a recorded game, and that was a fifteen aside affair, and they continued playing friendlies until the formation in 1877 of the Staffordshire Cup, which they entered and won in its first season.
They retained the cup the following season, and, having merged with another side, Stoke Victoria , became known as Stoke ( the City was only appended when Stoke received City status in 1925) and competed in the FA Cup, until , in part driven by their manager the Football league was established in 1888, with Stoke as one of the founder members. They finished last in the first two seasons and having failed to gain re-election were replaced by Sunderland. This was to cause Stoke a problem when they were rejoining the exapanded League a few years later. The League had a rule that only one side could wear a particular strip, and as their replacements, Sunderland were wearing red and white stripe, Stoke were forced to change theirs.
Stoke then had severe financial difficulties and were liquidated in 1908. Several local businessmen rallied round, and, purchasing the Victoria Ground, set about reconstituting the club. They re-joined the League in 1919 after the Great War, by which time the rule regarding club colours was rescinded and the traditional red and white stripes were restored.
Argyle had played Stoke by then as the Staffordshire side fielded two teams in its non-league years, one of which was in, bizarrely, the Southern League. Honours were even in the first season, both sides winning at home, but in 1912/13 goals by Bertie Bowler and Jack Bell gave Argyle their first (and so far, only) win at Stoke.
Until the 1930’s Stoke were the very definition of a yo-yo club , but in that decade the club gave a debut to a young Handley lad, who was to become their most famous player of all time, Stanley Matthews. By the end of the decade Matthews known as the Wizard of the dribble, was an established international , and although his greatest club triumph was when playing for Blackpool in the Cup Final that bears his name, he was to return to Stoke to play which he did until in 50’s. He won the inaugural Footballer of the Year Award, and then, aged 48 won it again, the oldest ever winner ( and likely to remain so). He never managed Stoke, although he did have a stint at Port Vale. The only other club he played for beside Stoke and Blackpool were two loan spells at Canadian side Toronto City, where he played his final game.
A teetotal vegetarian, his natural fitness allowed him to play to an age far beyond the norm, although his manager did bring in a.defensive player to act as his “minder” on field in the latter years of his Stoke career. He was however apparently one of the early dopers of the game, when in 1946, on England duty and feeling under the weather, he was given some amphetemines of the type used by the Luftwaffe to help their flight crews stay alert on their missions over England. He returned to turn in a man of the match performance for Stoke, and allegedly only queried the drugs he had been given when, later that night, and still full of energy, he found himself raking his neighbours leaves in the middle of the night.
Matthews and Stoke had had a narrow escape in 1939 when the club was planning a preseason tour. Their chosen country to visit was Poland, but the manager, showing a tad more decisiveness than Neville Chamberlain, decided not to travel. Matthews was already showing signs of wanting to leave to further his career. In 1938 the Kings Hall hosted a meeting of 3,000 people (and as many again outside), trying to, successfully on this occasion, persuade Matthews to stay.
Matthews moved on just before the end of the 1946/7 season. The fifties were a barren period for the club, but the early 1960’s saw the arrival of Tony Waddington as manager. He signed the future World Cup winning goalkeeper Gordon Banks, who remained at the club until 1972, when he lost an eye in a car accident. City won their only substantial trophy in 1972, winning the League Cup.
Waddington, the clubs longest serving manager, was to then sign another England keeper, Peter Shilton and his 1974/5 team challenged flickeringly for the League title before falling away behind Derby County.
In League terms that was a s good as it got for the club, and after Waddingtons retirement the club has vascillated between the Premier League and Championship, with one small diversion into the third tier. Briefly owned by an Icelandic group, in those years when Iceland seem to have all the money in the world, eventually the club was bought hy local businessman and fan Peter Coates, whose family own the club to this day. It was he who moved the side to a purpose built stadium, The Brittania, and who appointed a manager later to have Argyle connections (not Gary Megson whose stint was all too brief in charge) but Tony Pulis.
It was Pulis, who over his two spells in charge, split only by his time at Home Park, who did more to create the ethos of Stoke as a had to beat defensively strong side., In 2004/5 season he had a remarkable run of 17 games (including a nil nil at Home Park) that led to the season being called the Binary Season as Stoke went on a run of seventeen games where the scores were either 0-0, 1-0 or 0-1. After falling out with his Icelandic Chairman, Pulis left, and his stint at Argyle was remembered for his imbuing a defensive sturdiness that allowed Argyle to retain the second tier status. Indeed , assisted By David Kemp, the former Argyle marksman, the club resisted the approach at then end of 2006 from the new Stoke owner Peter Coates, to tempt Pulis back, but eventually he did return and his second spell saw a promotion back to premier League status for the club.
Pulis built a side based around giants like Huth and Shawcross, the long throw of the almost international javelin thrower Rory Delap and a cussedness that drove some opponents to distraction. Dom Matteo recalls a game where Arsene Wenger angrily paced out the pitch, convinced Stoke had reduced it to illegal levels to facilitate their long throws. Of course the fact Arsenal played on a massive billiard table pitch to suit their playing style was fine, but that Stoke should reduce their pitch size to suit their style….outrageous.
Living rent free in the Arsenal bosses head meant that one season, for the first time ever, Arsenal rehearsed long throw defending for the week prior to their trip to the Britannia. Only to arrive and find Delap was on the bench.
After taking Stoke to Europe, Pulis eventually was replaced by fellow Welshman Mark Hughes, and Stoke had their most consistent period but in 2018 returned to the Championship where they have remained ever since.
Last season saw the arrival, somewhat surprisingly of Sunderland boss Alex Neill, and he has overseen a wholesale reimagining of the squad which to date has had mixed results and sit just above Argyle points wise.
Argyle, who lost to Stoke at the beginning of their last Trophy win, the 73/4 Watney Cup, a cup they technically still hold as this was its final season, will hope to have Hardie back in the squad to reinforce the goal threat.
Stoke, minus Enda Stephens who contrived to get the two softest bookings in history just to avoid having to mark Morgan Whittaker, arrive in poor form, having finally broken QPR’s streak of failing to win at Loftus Road for some eight months, despite leading when down to ten men.
Both managers will need a reaction from their teams after disappointment on the road.
It is worth remembering though, should Argyle grab a win from the penalty spot, or from an injury time winner, that both these innovations to the game were brought about by Stoke City in the 1880’s.
To the best of my knowledge however , we cannot blame them for VAR.
COYG!!!!!!!
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