By Walter Broeckx
In an excellent article Andrew made a summary based on the referee reviews we have done this season. The question has been asked a few times before in the last weeks: are referees giving us a fairer crack of the whip lately? Statistically the answer is no.
The bias is still appalling against Arsenal in most matches. We get the odd decision in our favour but that is then outdone by a dozen other decisions going against us. Still too many bad fouls are not being called by referees. Still the holy cow from Mike Riley “to keep the game flowing” results in important calls not being made.
I have said it many times before that the main task of a referee IS NOT TO KEEP THE GAME FLOWING! The main task is to make sure that the laws of the game are respected equally by and for both teams on the field. And if both teams feel that a referee will make sure that the laws of the game will be strictly followed those teams have two options.
One option is to try to ignore the ref and still kick the shit out of the other team. In that case that team should and will be punished with numerous fouls , yellow cards and finally red cards. But believe me apart from idiotic players most teams will see that the ref will be strict and then will stop the kicking and the nonsense. Because the last thing most teams want is to be a man (or more) down.
Now most PGMO refs are putting the carriage in front of the horse. They allow the kicking from the start and only when things seem to get out of control they start to act. I believe that it should be the other way. Be strict from the first second and show you will not tolerate any shit and kicking from the players. Players will adapt to this quickly (again apart from the brainless idiots but their dismissal is no real disaster) and will try to avoid making too many fouls. And as a result….the game will start to flow.
What I have seen the last weeks and can remember from the back of my head is that we got away with a few big decisions. That is rather new for us. Because up to a few weeks and this for many seasons we didn’t get away with almost anything at all. By this I mean decisions in our own penalty area when in the past the ball would have ended up on the spot without hesitation. That is the big change we have seen. Was it by sheer luck? I don’t know yet. We will find out in the future.
But what hasn’t changed is the fact that our players are still very much hacked and kicked without real punishment. Elbows are aimed at our players face without fouls being called. In the semi final the elbow towards Koscielny was a such a blatant attack that I couldn’t believe that Atkinson let it go. More so he even allowed play to continue and give Reading a possible shooting chance despite a player lying on the floor holding his face.
The terrible kick on the Achilles of Özil still sends shivers down my spine. That could have been “a season is finished”-foul. Putting your studs on a player like that can not only rupture the Achilles but also injure the knee ligaments. That is by the way what happened to Theo in the FA cup match against Tottenham in the season before this. Özil has escaped it seemed and had no bad consequences but this was a very nasty and dirty foul. And what did our PGMO man do? Yep, nothing. He even didn’t call the foul. Needless to say he didn’t produce any card of course.
The kicking still goes on. But we seem to be a bit more lucky for now and the consequences of the attacks are not as dramatic as we have seen in the past. But that is not down to referees. That is down to luck. Luck that wasn’t on Per Mertesacker his side when he got kicked on his ankle and he had to go. We still don’t know the impact and how long he will be out but that was another fine example on how the ref letting things go ‘to keep the game flowing’ will result in players being injured later on.
When players feel they can get away with some things, they will try to go further. Any decent ref should know this and that is why a decent ref will first try to cut out such things and then if the feels the players are in the mood to play football and are not there to hack and kick, the can try to let the game flow. But not the other way round.
Alas that is the PGMO way of doing things most of the time. It sometimes feels as if referees are afraid to blow too many fouls in a match. It is as if they get punished by the PGMO for every foul they blow. So they will do anything to not blow fouls.
I do know that you can give advantage and that is even a great way of referee gamesmanship one could say but giving an advantage can only be done when there is a real and clear advantage to the team being fouled. But keeping the ball in the middle of the park with a teammate being down injured is not an advantage for a team. Yet that is the most given advantage in England that I see. That is keeping possession. And that is something completely different.
So the only thing that has changed a bit with referees lately is that we have escaped a few narrow could have been given decisions in and around our own penalty area. A breath of fresh air compared to the era starting around 2008. But the kicking of our players still goes on and still mostly unpunished. And as long as this goes on (the Mike Riley match 50 blueprint one could say) we are only one kick away from our next seriously injured player.
————————————-
Two cup finals on this day
23 April 1927: Arsenal’s first FA Cup Final – lost to Cardiff 0-1 at Wembley. The crowd of 91,206 was the largest thus far to see an Arsenal game. This was also the first cup final broadcast on radio.
23 April 1932: Arsenal’s 3rd cup final, losing 1-2 to Newcastle. It was a season of being runner’s up as Arsenal also came second in the First Division.
****
give me an S
give me an H… 😉
I totally agree … i watched the Arsenal v Reading gmatchwith a neutral …. they where shocked at the Readifoulsrn
I’m sure I said all that the other day to Tony.
Oh look, I did:
“Jambug
April 21, 2015 at 9:14 am
Tony,
I’m still of the mind that our high injury count is very much a consequence of lenient refereeing.
What I saw on Saturday is a trend I think I’ve been seeing for a majority of this season.
That is, that by and large, regarding a majority of decisions such as off sides, penalties, hand balls etc., we are getting a better, though still not perfect by any means, crack of the whip.
We have had penalties awarded to us the like of which we wouldn’t of got in the past. When did we ever get a ‘soft’ pen or an ‘I’ve seen ‘em given’ type penalty? But we have this year.
Add to that the fact we’ve got away with, if that’s the right word, a few borderline that would of definitely been given prior to this season.
And this has even been happening with Dean and the like.
So I just sense that some things have changed, in some areas, but not everything.
And the area it hasn’t is the latitude our opposition are still given to attempt to kick us off the park. It was more through luck than judgement that we got through Saturdays game with what seems like just one costly injury, to Per.
Kos and Mesut where assaulted with Red Card challenges that weren’t even called as fouls and as usual they where completely ‘fobbed off’ by the media, as if they never even happened.
Our injuries are looking better but with the latitude still being afforded our opponents I fear another bad one is just around the corner.
I really hope I’m wrong.”
Plagiarism, pure bloody plagiarism I tell ya 🙂
Yes , Walter , *IT* happens !
Walter/Brickfields?
Information Technologies?
Walter, one of the best demonstrations I’ve ever seen of the impact of referee styles was in the course of watching our youth team twice in the uefa youth league this year.
First up was Galtasaraay at home. The match started, and Galtasaraay were grabbing our players at every opportunity, and leaving their foot in almost every time. Nothing outrageous, nothing dangerous, but that’s what they were doing. The ref called it as a foul nearly every time.
There were moments I even wondered myself if he was going too far- what about letting things flow a little? what about a tiny bit of sympathy for the Galatasaraay players?- but that’s what he did, and it visibly disheartened Gala- their solution had been taken away from them- and allowed us to put together an endless succession of attractive and successful moves. The opposition did not have an answer, technique was allowed to determine who would win the match, and we beat them comprehensively.
A few weeks later the team played Anderlecht at home. Memories were still fresh for me of the last game I’d seen, and how it was reffed, and unfortunately it was a different story this time in that regard. He was willing to let a hell of a lot more go.
The game featured a few poor challenges from each team, but more so from Anderlecht. The Belgians were undoubtedly a better team than the Turks, and looked a good team full stop, but a lot of their ability in stopping us playing football on the day was reliant on the use of strong challenges, lots of small fouls, and a few bad challenges.
Despite this, it looked like we might prevail. One player looked too good for them, rough treatment or not- Crowley. This was in the first half, we had adapted to the way the game was to be played, and Crowley was shining brightly. He scored a good goal, and was playing brilliantly. Then they injured him.
On the stroke of half time, someone hit his ankle hard after the ball had gone. It was not the first attempt, but it hit the jackpot. I’m not sure if a foul was given. Crowley returned, was a mere shadow of his first half self. We didn’t nearly as well second half, lost the game, and with it went the top spot in the group. You can never prove whether the challenge would have been made if the ref had been firmer, or simply doing his job properly, from the off, but it’s almost certainly the case.
The lessons of those games and how they were refereed make it heartbreakingly clear how much we lose from poor refereeing- how much the better footballers always lose in that scenario- and they also make it clear, ominously clear, who will be willing to fight with everything they have to protect bad refereeing. It is the people who have something to gain from it.
English football on the whole feels it has something to gain from that refereeing (though they are well capable of changing their mind when needs be, such as when a favourite team is involved, or when referees are trying to full fill personal ambitions in other competitions), and individual teams know that the day they play Arsenal is the day they gain most from it. Directly and indirectly immense pressures are therefore generated to keep things as they are.
Sort out refereeing and almost always the team with superior technique will win. It would radically improve our prospects, and vested interests will never allow it to happen.
IT – Inconvenient Truth-
http://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?catref=mgdn10
Jambug, to be honest I have been “out of town” in the last two weeks for most of the time. Could read the articles but didn’t have time to read much comments. But big minds think alike I would say…
Regarding the loss to Cardiff, it was possibly the worst decision by a referee against Arsenal ever. Before then ball was centred from the wing it was at least two feet over the byline.
Atkinson was an abomination in the Reading match as many of us have commented. You’re correct, Walter, when you you say the ref must take control at the off. If he doesn’t the result is a game like yesterday’s Real v Atletico; i.e. a rugby match that deteriorated as it went on with players from both sides hacked, knocked down, kicked, lying all over the pitch. It was what a Stoke v Stoke match would look like. I don’t recall the name of the the referee (it was a German crew). I just hope Arsenal never draw him in a Champion’s League match. The whole squad will end up in hospital.
Walter.
I’m not bothered my friend, more flattered than anything, that our thoughts on this are so similar.
As you say (well almost) ‘Great minds think alike’ 🙂
Rich
Also a great post.
So true what you say, but at the same time so depressing, because, as you say, the vested interests will just not allow anything to change.
As an ex-footballer at schoolboy and subsequent pub club level, but a great watcher in later life,(though not a student of the Laws of the game), I am increasingly concerned over the sustained bias of referees against Arsenal FC.
CONCERNED….because I miss 90% of the bias.
Try as I might, unless Walter or someone draws my attention to the fouling etc sometime later, I just do not pick it up on TV.
In fact, of late, I began to think that the PGMOs were treating us more fairly than in the past.
I wonder if I’m one of the few or the many who has become blinded to the alleged mayhem on the field.
The real-atletico game:
Referee
Felix Brych (GER)
Assistant referees
Mark Borsch (GER), Stefan Lupp (GER)
Fourth official
Marco Achmüller (GER)
Additional assistant referees
Bastian Dankert (GER), Marco Fritz (GER)
Gord
Thanks for the info. Did you see the game the way I did or am I crazy. Chicharito was taken down 3 times – definitely Yellow Cards and Brych didn’t even call for a foul. Happened to players on both sides, I was a neutral viewer. Disgraceful display.
goonersince72
Sorry, I didn’t see the game. I thought it might be useful to look up the officials.
I am with you Nicky
Like you I find this self indulgent “poor us” is embarrassing – Arsenal football club = the victims
A hilarious narrative – a unique narritive
Statistics though – who could possibly ever argue with statistics 😉
Anicoll5
We’ll hopefully that will be the last we hear from you then.
I mean, I would hate for you to hang around here just feeling all embarrassed. 😉
Not only does Riley want to let the game flow, unless of course it concerns Callum Chambers when we are on the brink of a comeback at Stoke, but ex refs have indicated he does not want them sending off key players, especially key England players. The likes of Rooney and Cahill can do as they please, though maybe time has finally caught up with Gerrard on this front.
But Riley would want the game to flow and keep key England players on the pitch because that’s what his masters, Skydamore want. And if it means he gets to inflict more grief on Arsenal, he is happy.
Strange , how,the pgmol have never said why Keren Baratt, who, along with sir alex fergueson was ref selector in chief was recently sacked before the end of his contract.
Up to the gentlemen who run the site in respect of whether they regard a bar as appropriate I reckon – don’t you ?
Which contributor to keep in, and which to bar can however be a bit difficult.
I am a very rare contributor to Ua and it is only over the past two days I have put anything in.
You may be correct – on that basis I withdraw.
Jambug,
You will learn much from this site, as I do – and you would also learn a lot from Anicol5, which I also do.
I have rather enjoyed seeing him comment here. As I do on the Positively site, where you would be most welcome.
If you are the Anicoll5 from Positively Arsenal, good to see you, that really is a top site,with some extremely valid articles and comments. Often visit it myself.
Can see where you are coming from regarding the team as victims. Yes, the team and I guess fans cannot afford to feel sorry for themselves, wenger recently said so himself on the official site
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150419/wenger-we-ve-learned-from-our-hiccups.
Maybe our new approach to the game is paying some dividends in terms with our luck with refs, who knows.
But I think the point many of us feel team is hard done by ,certainly compared with others. Yes, take your point on stats, but I think we can say for a high degree of …erm…certainty that we do not get the rub of the green the likes of Chelsea or Utd get. That does not have to indicate a victim mentality, just a questioning …why?
There is a blogger that has been refereed to not just by myself, but a couple of key authors on her, a blogger,who,has consistently stated Arsenals manager and board need to wisen up to what really goes on, which this blogger says is nothing short of corruption. But then again,,he may have a vested interest in stating such things, as he claims to act as an insider consultant to clubs on such matters. He may be talking complete Bollox of course…but… I am not sure the likes of wenger would pay much heed to,such activities, he certainly would not change his approach to counter possible self interested groups or match fixers, but the possibility is,,they are out there.
Self indulgent poor us? If you believe everything evens out in the end, you are wrong.
@Anicoll5,
Rather than feel embarrassed, I am irritated after watching a referee treat us fairly (in my trusting eyes), only to discover later via Walter and others, that extreme bias has been shown against us, yet again.
What amazes me is that most of the ‘supporters’ do not see the fouls. A poke in the eye, an elbow on the face, a kick to the achilles. The referee is up close , he must see it but then the people next to me don’t see what I see. In fact one guy said ‘they’re from a lower league so its normal to allow them leeway’. That upset me, so I said if that’s the case why don’t we add that to the Laws & even give them a heads start with 2 goals.
Most of the supporters do not have a clue of referee bias or cheating as they seem to think it is correct for an elbow to strike a face unless a commentator says its wrong. Very few have read the Laws of The Game yet watch the game for years with an assumption of knowledge of what is right & what is wrong. Most media pundits are in that boat.
It would be a great move for Arsenal to publish the Laws on the website. This could be followed with a report after each game on what Laws were broken as seen by the referee.
I am sure questions will start to surface on why some fouls are ignored. This will bring a lot more publicity than at present. It might shine a light into the eyes of the PGMO.
A very good article Walter, following on from the fine article from Andrew.
Not only have the PGMO prats failed to do their job, they have happily presided, almost continuously over GBH against Arsenal.
Strangely the media and all the “experts” trotted out by various sections of the media seem quite happy to ignore fouls committed against Arsenal – I wonder why?
Walter, you were right to note the fouls on Ozil and Kos, but the studs up foul on Mert caused some damage and may take him out of the Chelski match – part of the Atkinson/PGMO agenda?
Re Chelski, I fear for Sanchez, he was really targeted for thuggery by Chelski last time – that nice fellow Cahill very nearly ended Sanchez’s season/career, but that was not the only assault.
Why are the media & FA protecting the PGMO mutts?
Bjt, wish I knew why they are protecting Chelsea, the club that openly and wrongly accused one of their employees, their much maligned Mark Clattenberg of racism
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20507362
Why would this be, the pgmol fail to rally around a wronged colleague, maybe the pgmol do not like this ref, or maybe Chelsea have more of something than most other clubs
Anicoll5
I did not suggest the banning of anybody.
What I suggested was:
As the Referee Reviews, and there findings of Refereeing bias against Arsenal, are the cornerstone on which Untold is built, being ‘Embarrassed’ by there findings suggests that this is perhaps not the blog for you.
You sound like the kind of Arsenal fan that subscribes to the idea Wilshere himself is to blame for all his injuries?
Go on, tell me I’m wrong.
Menace/Jambug
Like you, I’m rankled by Arsenal fans who argue that refs don’t treat us unfairly when it’s plain obvious to see for all. I haven’t read the laws of the game to know cheating when I see it. Some of our fans think mourinho is a genius too, despite the obvious aiming below the belt he does each time we face his sides. I may be wrong but I suspect a certain set of our fans believe most of the tripe they read/hear in the media, and I’m not talking aaa here, and these are the sort of fans you’ll hear trying to defend refs, saying they are only human blah blah blah.
Anicoll5,
For what it’s worth, I question my views a lot. Here are a few of the reasons why :
1, The volume of my complaints takes things into territory that sounds far-fetched. Lay those complaints out end to end, and we have, according to me, been subject to an outrageous (fantastical?) amount of poor officiating.
2, There are some supporters of all other clubs who insist it is their club who are hard done by (as with religion, we can’t all be right, and we could all be wrong)
3. The world’s foremost expert on bias, Daniel Kahnemann, says that nobody can fully overcome their biases, even world renowned experts who make a great effort to do so. To a large extent, biases are automatic, so the best you can do is be aware of their existence- which can work, in combination with your will, to limit them somewhat. Which creates the notional possibility that my Arsenal biases are making me see a distorted view of reality.
4. I also happen to insist the media treat us pretty terribly (getting a bit much now, isn’t it?)
5. I’d rather not be correct. It would put me in a heap of trouble, realising i could be that wrong about any aspect of the world, but for a multitude of reasons, it would be better to be wrong.
6. The chief reason probably relates to that dread word victim. ‘Victim’, with so many connotations of weakness and, worse, powerlessness. Who wants to feel like that? No, everyone wants to be strong, and they want to think of their team as strong (which I do)
7. Add all these complaints of mine together, and do I not emerge as some kind of advocate for ridiculously clean, ‘soft’ even, football, with no thunderous challenges, no pushing your luck with the rules to gain an advantage, no fieriness in the play? Sanitised, passionless football?
8. I’d like to be able to watch football as I did when a kid. Trusting everything, concentrating only on football, accepting that anything which happens is just football. There is much to recommend treating things that way.
I ask myself those questions or ones like them quite frequently. I never fall over the precipice into ‘ah, wrong! I’m wrong about the whole thing!’, but sometimes I leave things open somewhat- ‘maybe I’ve gone too far here, maybe it’s not as bad as all that. Let’s try look at it with new eyes for the next game’
Sometimes, there’s not much in that next game. I don’t recall ever thinking ‘whoa, this ref is favouring us today’, but I might well think ‘ah, not too bad’, or ‘hmm, if that guy was against us, he’d have killed us there’
More often than not,though, I find we fare a bit worse than that. And then there are the not infrequent occasions when my doubting is blown to smithereens. When the refereeing towards us is appalling, inexplicably bad, outside anything human fallibility or incompetence could explain, or at least it is once the new evidence is fed into that vast pile of old stuff compiled from watching about 10 hours of football per week for about 25 years.
So… I’m back, and maybe I’ll come here to voice my grievances immediately, or maybe they’ll be stored up for a later date. And my belief that every one of those questions of mine can be answered satisfactorily is once again extremely strong.
I could run through those answers, but already I’ve asked a bit much for anyone to stick with it this long. I do have one proposal for anyone who doubts and mocks us here,though : get thee to the video of Riley refereeing game 50!
Riley that day cannot be explained away by incompetence. The only explanation is that something was very wrong there. And all that wrongness was tilted in one direction, against us. That man was rewarded by being made the boss of the referees. He holds immense power over what happens in premier league football. He is a bona fida wrong un. And Riley does not exist in a vacuum.
And I like tough competitive football by the way. It just has to be refereed half decently, otherwise you get bad or even atrocious results, including those terrible broken legs our players suffered (any other clubs suffered anything remotely like it in the last decade? Hmmm).
An immense catalogue of wrongdoing is actually not as surprising as it seems. It is in fact the sort of results you inevitably get if something is deeply wrong within institutions (Are the Daily Mail not utter bastards every day of their existence?) If the world were reset every day, or every year, and I was finding each time that these new ,clean, reset institutions were still misbehaving…I might have to conclude ‘aye, hang on a minute, you’ve lost it pal. That’s too improbable. Paranoia it is’
A bad person or a bad set up will relentlessly produce the same results until something is able to stop or change it. Riley is still there. Whatever made him ref that game that way may still be there also.
Rich,
Excellent, thoughtful.
Game 50
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mM747L9Wf8M
Rich
“I do have one proposal for anyone who doubts and mocks us here,though : get thee to the video of Riley refereeing game 50!”
As bad as that Refereeing performance was, and it was diabolical, I contest that the way Martin Tylor and Andy Gray stretched every sinew in there body to excuse each and every increasingly bad decision, was even worse.
That was the day the Commentator/Pundit/Media die was cast.
That was the day we learnt, that no matter what the level of violence perpetrated on our players, it was to be ignored.
That was the day we learnt, that no matter how bias the Referee may be against us, it was was never to be acknowledged, nor the Referee to be criticised.
The Media followed this line after the game, citing it was all of Arsenals own making by allowing themselves to be bullied.
This being said despite the evidence clearly on show in front of them. Arsenal, and Reyes in particular where kicked of the park in the first half. RVN almost snapped Coles leg in half without even a card, yet it was Cole himself who received the first Yellow of the match for the most innocuous of challenges.
This media Blue print has been adhered to unwaveringly ever since, and it is this line taken by the media that has provided the fertile ground that has allowed Arsenal to be refereed in this way to this very day.
Of course it does not happen every match, and it rarely happens to that degree, but as the reviews show, it does still happen, and on an almost weekly basis, and it does still get as bad as Riley on occasion, such as Villa at home last year, to name but 1.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times, it’s the way we are treated in the media that allows the Referees to treat us as they do on the pitch.
One encourages the other.
Anicoll,
The only way we’ll be able to ignore the heavy wedge of statistics compiled by many who aren’t even Arsenal fans and simply focus on the footy is if someone almost as learned as your fine good self would be willing to do as much work as some of their colleagues in Italy did in the past. They don’t appear to be so inclined.
Or the less learned Piers Morgan publishes some more of his phone hacking malarky! 🙂
Or the PGMOB is dismembered and disbanded. And the officials in the sport of Football are given the numbers and support that they deserve. Like their colleagues in every other major sport. Because as we all know and understand, there is no rational or reasonable explanation that can be provided to explain the lack of such support when compared with every other sport over the past decade and longer.
Jambug
You’ll not be surprised to hear I agree with that totally. Take any incident above a certain threshold, and all of players, referee and media have the ability to effectively try manipulate , in different ways, what has taken place and what the outcome will be.
The players do it by either making a big deal of what has happened, or not. The ref does it by making one judgement or another. The media would appear to have no direct influence over proceedings, but, as you outline, they do.
They can’t alter what a ref is about to do, turning yellows into reds or vice versa, not immediately anyway. They don’t tell him whether to whistle or not during the game. But over long periods of time referees will come to understand media behaviour perfectly well. They’ll know what they are likely to be slammed for in the media, and that their bosses take careful notice of what the media says.
Again I’m left in the position my earlier post attempted to cover- if not seeing conspiracy heaped on conspiracy, then seeing behaviour which would be consistent with a conspiracy (my opinion is that nothing like that would even be necessary to create the situation we have).
Oh well, that’s how I see it. All that remains for me, confident about the what, is to generate all my theories about the why.
Of late, I am increasingly drawn to an incredibly simple explanation for much of it : could it be that football is a remarkably dirty business now, and that Wenger, while no saint (nor martyr!) is a thoroughly decent person?
You might be able to get away with being a nice guy in football without attracting too much animosity from the big dogs, if you stay well away from where they operate . Go there and stay there, and not meet fire with fire in terms of underhand practices and going down every last avenue your power could take you, and you are at a serious disadvantage.
The media could effectively limit the damage, but what if that’s also a dirty old game (anyone laughing at that idea did not pay the blindest bit of notice to, for one, the phone-hacking trial and subsequent closure of the News of the World).
I read this quote last week : ‘Arsene is almost too good to be true. You would not expect somebody like him in a business like football. He is such a respectable decent person’.
It’s from way back, Jan 95, from Werder Bremen’s then general manager Willie Lemke. The Bremen man had flown to Japan to try talk Wenger into quitting Nagoya and taking up the manager’s job with his club instead. Once again, pesky principles interfered.
The little things. Fergie has a nice little private gathering with four journos back in 98. Severe criticism emerges of Wenger (unsportsmanlike, don’t you know). A little back and forth. Ferguson denies having said what the journalists reported, then says he sent Wenger a letter to apologise. Journalists ask Wenger about it. He replies, ‘If he has written the letter it must have been sent by horse because I haven’t received it”. That was not playing the game, and things were just getting started.
When we are dead and gone , I’ll wager that the name of Arsene Wenger will be remembered and revered as the greatest manager to grace the English game ; while SAF’s name will be right down there along with the ‘greats’ of yesteryear like Don Revie .
Remember him ? I don’t think that even those die hard Leeds and England fans would even in their mellowest and /or drunken moments would remember him fondly.
The Levels Of Stress
You pick up a hitchhiker… A beautiful girl.
Suddenly , she faints inside your car and you take her to the hospital.
Now that’s stressful.
But at the hospital, they say she is pregnant and congratulate you that you’re going to be a father.
You say that you are not the father, but the girl says you are.
This is getting very stressful!
You request a DNA test to prove that you are not the father.
After the tests are completed, The doctor says the test shows you’re infertile, And probably have been since birth.
You’re extremely stressed but relieved.
On your way back home, you think about your 5 kids at home
NOW THAT IS STRESS !!
Shit doan lie !
An air traffic control tower suddenly lost communication with a small twin engine aircraft.
A moment later the tower land line rang and was answered by one of the employees.
The passenger riding with the pilot who lost communications was on a cellular phone and yelling “Mayday!Mayday! Mayday! “The pilot just had an instant and fatal heart attack. I grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket because he had told me before we took off he had the tower on his speed dial memory. I am flying upside down at 18,000 feet and travelling at 180 mph…..Mayday, mayday!!”
The tower had put him on speaker phone immediately.
“Calm down, we acknowledge you and we’ll guide you down after a few questions”.
“The first thing is not to panic, remain calm”!
He began his series of questions:
Tower: “How do you know you are traveling at 18,000 feet”?
Aircraft: “I can see that it reads 18,000 feet on the Altimeter dial in front of me”.
Tower: “Okay, that’s good, remain calm. How do you know you’re traveling at 180 mph”?
Aircraft: “I can see that it reads 180 mph on the Airspeed dial in front of me”.
Tower: “Okay, this is great so far, but it’s heavily overcast, so how do you know you’re flying upside down”?
Aircraft : “The shit in my pants is running out of my shirt collar”.
We already know how corrupt the media is. It’s been proved in court & all that happened is the News of The World closed. What should have happened was the whole News International group should have been closed and the owners jailed for a long time. The current PM was hand in glove with the corruption & should have resigned his position. The same owners employed corrupt commentators & broadcast football. They also were involved with trials by TV where Arsenal players were picked on & banned because of ‘framed’ evidence.
PGMO are still involved in officiating despite a history of cheating & corruption. The FA are totally devoid of any conscience. They use the sloping shoulder approach to excuse themselves as the only driving force is the obscene amounts of money that must be flowing into their banks.
It is as sick as that 50th match…… continually playing & being cheated.
I ask any one to go out in the garden today and jump like you were going to head a ball. I am betting that hardly any of you jumps with a leading arm or elbow. Why do footballers do it then? Of course to disable and shake up the other player for a while. I hate it.
I personally think that a lot of injuries are deliberate, and that ALL teams do have one or two players who either do it naturally or in retaliation.
//
Why is “**IT” considered a bad word in UK?
After all the Germans use Scheiße meaning the same thing and i’m sure they must be many others who do use that word in their speak.
After all it is a necessary part of life, like eating and eating is not a bad word, or maybe because the powers that be do not want us to **** thereby blocking our colons and dying in horrible pain? 🙂
O man, i’m rambling again.
Rich, you hit the nail on the head.
“He is such a respectable decent person”.
How many of you remember that it’s always the nice or upright person to get ribbed, attacked or mocked, because they are usually, 1: jealous that they are not and will never be so, 2: see him as a threat to the order they serve.
Whatever obstacles AW has overcome to be the person he is today, most of us wish we will have/had has that same sort of strength to face our own obstacles.
Rich
“But over long periods of time referees will come to understand media behaviour perfectly well. They’ll know what they are likely to be slammed for in the media, and that their bosses take careful notice of what the media says”.
Another Nail on the head.
I have said many times that the Media are the referees Judge, Jury and executioner.
All The PGMO are bothered about is how there Referees are judged on Talkshite, in the Red tops and on the Sofa at Sky Sports.