Whistle-happy referee ruined big day

Seldom have I ever seen a referee wreck a game the way Graham Barber did at Roots Hall yesterday.

He awarded an incredible 52 free-kicks and booked seven players in a match which was naturally robust for a local derby, but rarely produced a serious foul.

The Tring whistler never allowed the game to flow for more than two minutes without stepping in to penalise even the most innocuous challenge.

And the more he blew the more frustrated the players became and the more the game was in danger of boiling over.

I know I've often been criticised in the past for taking referees to task, but honestly this man's performance was so poor it almost defied description.

Mr Barber has taken charge of Premiership games and whether he thought the third Division was beneath him I don't know, but his display needs to be looked at closely by the powers that be.

The worst part was the way it ruined what everybody had eagerly anticipated would be an exciting local derby with plenty of strong but fair tackles.

In the end players were obviously scared to even look at an opponent for fear of incurring Mr Barber's wrath. Some of the booking were just crazy, but the worst part for me was that he ruined the afternoon for a bumper Boxing Day crowd.

The 9,595 fans who packed into Roots Hall deserved to see 90 minutes of flowing soccer free from petty interruptions and annoying and unnecessary hold-ups.

They paid good money to watch two sides in the play-offs battle for the three points on offer, but were instead treated to something resembling a farce and it was all down to the man in the middle who decided to steal centre stage from the people we had all come to watch . . . the players.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.