Is league 2 a level playing field?

[fulwoodshrimp]

The manager's disappointment with Saturday's referee and Reuben Read's acknowledgement that it was a soft penalty, highlight a consistent theme of this season. Standards of refereeing seem to have been at an all time low and on many occasions seem to be very partial and biased. We just don't seem to have had the rub of the green and a number of matches have been decided by the referee and a controversial decision. I still think we are getting the recruitment of referees very badly wrong. Any organisation responsible for the promotion of the referee in the Cheltenham game needs to take a long look at itself. Someone in an earlier post commented that some of the best assistant referees this season have been female yet we see few women actually making the referees list. Why is this? Refereeing still seems very much a male preserve and when many of the male referees are so poor, surely its time to give female referees their chance. In my opinion we can't just continue to produce the mediocre male referees the present system is producing. We need a drastic change to ensure League 2 is a fair league, not one where the "big boys" are favoured and where some results are determined by the referee's apparent bias.

[CityShrimp]

I do wonder there's some 'little old Morecambe' syndrome going on.

We can look at most of the decisions that have gone against us, such as the Murphy red and yesterday's pen, and say fair enough, the decisions haven't been outright incorrect, referees have a hard job, etc etc etc... But you can't deny that there have been a lot of soft decisions that have gone against us this season, and not many in our favour.

An attacker feels a nudge in the box from a defender and hits the deck. It happens quickly, the referees view is obscured etc, basically there's say a 50:50 chance that the referee gives a pen. Except it feels like it's a 75:25 chance of being a pen if it's against little Morecambe

[black morse]

Don't you think that every team's fans feel this way? Have a look at any fans' forum and I'll bet you'll see the same comments. I'm not saying that referring is good or cannot be improved but I doubt that there are that many biased referees. Agree with what you say about women refs. If they want it and are good enough they should have a chance. They will have to be pretty tough though as they will get the same verbal abuse as the men from players and fans alike (if not worse from some!).

[Keith]

Perhaps we need to go down easier ourselves, then we may get a few more 'soft' penalties? If you can't beat them, join them.

[George Dawes]

I see it as a case of getting street wise, some teams actually cover this side of the game in training.

Mark Duffy was pretty good with this, remember one game at the Globe(forget who we were playing) we were 0-1 down with 15mins to go, and Duffy won two penalties in quick succession in front of the away fans who went mental! we then won 2-1 thanks to Duffy, with Morecambe fans even back then for once leaving the ground happy for a change.

it's for the powers that be above to take the moral high ground on this.

in the mean time, lets wise up.

[CityShrimp]

I see it as a case of getting street wise, some teams actually cover this side of the game in training.

Mark Duffy was pretty good with this, remember one game at the Globe(forget who we were playing) we were 0-1 down with 15mins to go, and Duffy won two penalties in quick succession in front of the away fans who went mental! we then won 2-1 thanks to Duffy, with Morecambe fans even back then for once leaving the ground happy for a change.

it's for the powers that be above to take the moral high ground on this.

in the mean time, lets wise up.

Exactly. Duffy had the confidence and nerve to take men on and run directly at them in the box, which will always result in penalty opportunities (look at the one we conceded yesterday). I feel that we haven't been very good at doing that for several years now.

[Arnside Red]

I was in the Torquay end with friends, their fans were quite jovial with me ay 1-0 upp, things got a bit more delicate towards the end, mind you I was in with the Torquay fans one game at Christie when our keeper should have been sent off, and went on to save a penalty I think....