Righting the wrongs

I quite enjoyed the resumption of the Premier League after the coronavirus lockdown.

With a match almost every night, it really offered something to sink your teeth into.

I definitely ended up watching much more Premier League than I was earlier in the season. My attention back then may well have been saturated by the vast array of different sports available to watch, and each of their different competitions. The top level of English men’s football had become something that I was taking for granted.

This is not to say that I stopped caring, or was not watching at all. Indeed, it was impossible to ignore the fantastic season that Liverpool were forging.

With the restart, however, it gave me a chance to live through sport at its best.

Sport is at its best when it has a narrative.

If you tune in to the last five minutes of the World Cup final, or glance up at a screen just as an Olympic gold medal is being won, it is never as good as feeling like you’ve seen a story unfold by watching more than just those climactic moments.

This is what I felt with the return of the Premier League.

Yes, Liverpool were certain to win the title. But could Leicester City get the job done and qualify for the UEFA Champions League? Could Wolverhampton Wanderers or Sheffield United find a way in there, too? Burnley and Crystal Palace also had a chance of gaining European football next season. And then there’s the fight to avoid relegation.

In normal times, Aston Villa versus Sheffield United would probably not be a match which I'd sit down in front of. For their meeting on 17^th June, though, I made sure I was watching. It was the very first Premier League match back.

My anticipation had been rising. Other countries in Europe had already got their leagues back underway. German football now had a new following. I had just spent the weekend watching Polish action.

The match at Villa Park represented a success. British sport could pull itself through these tough times.

Villa Park before a Premier League match in 2006

As for the match itself, 0–0.

Yet, there was an incident.

A rather big incident.

Late on in the first half, the Aston Villa goalkeeper caught the ball from a free kick, only to take it over the goal-line. Not by much, but definitely over.

No goal.

Why? Offside? Pushing in the box?

Nope.

The Goal Decision System did not indicate that a goal had been scored.

Sheffield United were denied the lead in the most bizarre circumstances.

The match officials on the pitch should bear no fault for this failure. The referee wears a watch which alerts when a goal is scored. With no reason to suppose otherwise, the referee awarded nothing, as his watch remained blissfully sedate. He assumed it to be the case that not all of the ball had crossed all of the line.

The Video Assistant Referee (VAR), on the other hand, should take some blame in this instance. While the Goal Decision System is used to decide whether a goal is scored by measuring whether the ball has crossed the line, VAR can be used at any time to help with match changing incidents.

So why didn’t VAR intervene here?

They could have done and should have done.

In truth, upon watching the first few replays, I wasn’t 100% sure myself.

When the ball is on the ground and mostly over the goal-line, it is possible to see the green grass between ball and line, but for it not to be a goal due to the curvature of the ball, and the overhang that this creates. Although the ball was instead being clutched by the goalkeeper at Villa Park, my first thought was that this effect had come into play. After all, the ball looked far enough over the line for it to take only the slenderest of margins for it not to be a goal.

But each replay showed the keeper stumble back a little further. Surely in that moment he had taken the whole ball over the whole line?

Of course, in time, we got the clarity that he had. I guess that the VAR just assumed that the Goal Decision System was better placed to make a judgement than everyone who could see what happened on the replays with their own eyes.

On the night, it was a big talking point at half time. Another football controversy.

By this time, I had accepted that it should have been a goal.

I was thinking of reasons as to what could have gone wrong.

What with it being the first game since lockdown, maybe the officials had forgotten the correct protocols in enabling the goal-line technology? Maybe the virtual line ‘seen’ by the cameras involved in the technology had been calibrated incorrectly so that it did not match up to the actual line in real life?

Whatever the reason for the error, a thought had occurred to me during the interval.

At the start of the second half, could Aston Villa just allow Sheffield United to score, unopposed?

All three dressing rooms (home, away and referees’) must have become aware of the situation at the break. A quick discussion between a member of each would suffice for an agreement to be made that the ball could be walked in.

It would right the wrongs of the first half, and still give Aston Villa plenty of time to respond.

None of the pundits or commentators brought up the idea at the time. Maybe if they had, someone could have relayed it to the managers to mull over before they came out for the second half.

There are various precedents for teams allowing their opponents to score. Most that I can think of involve when a team score unintentionally as play is restarted after an injury.

Indeed, Aston Villa scored an uncontested goal of their own in April last year. Leeds United had scored in their meeting, despite Aston Villa having a player down injured. Then, to the bemusement of many, an irate Marcelo Bielsa, the Leeds United boss, ordered his players to allow Aston Villa to score. Perhaps most astonishingly of all, that episode saw Leeds United win FIFA’s Fair Play award later that year, despite Bielsa having his staff spy on opponents’ training earlier in the campaign.

Another occasion that I can think of involved Nottingham Forest and Leicester City in a League Cup encounter in 2007. The East Midlands rivals were drawn against each other, but animosity transitioned to concern when Leicester City’s Clive Clarke suffered a cardiac arrest. The match was abandoned.

Clarke would recover, and the match was rescheduled. As Nottingham Forest were leading 1–0 when the original match was halted, Leicester City decided that “it was a difficult situation, but it was the right thing to do” to let their opponents have a free goal in the new fixture, and reset from there.

Interestingly in that match, it was the Nottingham Forest goalkeeper Paul Smith who was the one to score uncontested. In that way, betting markets couldn’t be manipulated ahead of the match if word got out about the plans.

So, should Aston Villa have allowed Sheffield United to score for free?

Or, from another point of view, why should Aston Villa have allowed Sheffield United to score for free?

It was not Aston Villa’s fault that the technology failed. Nor was it their fault that there was no intervention from VAR. It is not up to Aston Villa to referee the game. It is not up to them to decide which injustice is an injustice too many for the sport of football.

After all, football is still ridden with decisions that should not be. On Sunday, Brentford’s Rico Henry was shown a red card in the first leg of their play-off semi-final against Swansea City. That resulted from a challenge which had the Brentford bench applauding the quality of. The referee’s decision may well have been pivotal on that night, as Swansea City went on to score and win 1–0.

Henry’s red card ended up being rescinded. He was able to play in last night’s second leg, and was instrumental in Brentford’s third goal which ended up being vital. Brentford could leave Griffin Park on the highest of highs. I’m sad that I never got the chance to go to that ground.

Brentford head coach Thomas Frank has called for VAR in the play-offs. Maybe we will see that be the case sooner rather than later. Although, as we see in the Premier League, having VAR available is no guarantee of the correct decision.

There has been a litany of VAR decisions in the Premier League this season which experts have said were wrong.

So, why should Aston Villa have allowed Sheffield United to score for free?

That question's even more rhetorical this time. After all, football has seen other errors, and they have not gone on to be corrected in-game, so why should this one?

To give an answer, I suppose that this was not an instance of a red card, a penalty or anything else which might have had an effect on the scoreline. This was an instance which very much did have an effect on the scoreline, as Sheffield United had a perfectly legitimate goal simply not count.

But, again, why should it be up to Aston Villa to decide on the fairness of the situation? Is it not understandable that when you are in the relegation mire you take every single piece of good fortune that you can possibly grasp?

I think that that is what the Aston Villa fans can hold onto. If their team had just allowed Sheffield United to score, then those fans might not have felt that they’d seen their side do the right thing, and instead finish the night feeling dejected, as they’d have just wasted the biggest slice of luck that they’d been handed all season.

Regardless of what the right thing to do was, the fact is that the match ended goalless. Officially, at least.

Aston Villa were able to add a point to their Premier League tally.

Fast forward to the final day of the season. Aston Villa stay up by one point.

It’d be remiss of me to avoid mentioning the heart that the club showed to collect eight points from their final four games and drag themselves out of the drop zone.

However, this week it has emerged that AFC Bournemouth are pondering a legal challenge over that goal-line technology error back in June.

Had Aston Villa not got a point out of that match, AFC Bournemouth would have survived instead.

Maybe this is a case of ‘would’ve, could’ve, should’ve’, and should instead be a case of ‘the table doesn’t lie’. Maybe. But this shows that there are at least a few murmurings of resentment coming out of AFC Bournemouth.

Look, I think that it’s important to point out that I can’t see any scenario where AFC Bournemouth are somehow reprieved of relegation. The season has been played out, and it is too late for any fiddling in the courts (I say that while relegation issues in the Championship and League Two are still being decided… in the courts).

What might be likely is for AFC Bournemouth to consider chasing damages, possibly from Hawk-Eye, the company which operates the goal-line technology.

After the Aston Villa–Sheffield United match, Hawk-Eye released a statement, explaining what went wrong:

“The seven cameras located in the stands around the goal area were significantly occluded by the goalkeeper, defender, and goalpost. This level of occlusion has never been seen before in over 9,000 matches that the Hawk-Eye Goal Line Technology system has been in operation.

“Hawk-Eye unreservedly apologises to the Premier League, Sheffield United, and everyone affected by this incident.”

Back at the time when goal-line technology was first being developed, two systems got the go-ahead from FIFA and football’s rule makers. One system involved cameras triangulating the ball, and the other involved a ball with a sensor chip implanted inside which would activate when passing through a magnetic field covering the goalmouth.

I’m not sure that I ever really understood the latter. How could a chip within a ball tell where the outside of the ball was, and thus whether all of the ball had truly crossed all of the line?

While I’m sure that the developers of that technology have that answer, I ended up plumping for the camera system as my own preferred choice. Mostly, this was down to the fact that replays would become available, and show a virtual goal and a virtual football, and be able to show just how close that chance that we were all wondering about really was.

What with it being a camera-based system, one thought did occur to me, though. It was a little farfetched, so bear with me.

What if a striker had a shot, and the goalkeeper adopted a position whereby they were crouching to get to their preferred height, with their hands out in front of them ready to parry? What if the goalkeeper then leaned backwards in anticipation of the force of the shot, only for the ball to avoid their hands and… go up the inside of their shirt, which had bellowed upwards just enough during the goalkeeper's movements so that the ball was afforded safe passage up there? What if the goalkeeper then fell over the goal-line, with the ball still inside their shirt, thus marginally taking all of the ball over all of the line?

Unless there is some rule which I am unaware of about the ball not being allowed to go under a shirt, then that should be a goal (at least if you followed what I was trying to describe).

However, with the ball being fully obscured by the goalkeeper’s shirt, it would be invisible to the cameras used in goal-line technology. I always wondered what would happen in this situation, and I suspected that there may be a flaw in the shiny new solution.

As it happens, in the Aston Villa–Sheffield United encounter, I had managed to watch a match which would answer my question. Alright, the actual scenario of the goalkeeper cradling the ball close to his body next to the post and other players is perhaps not quite as elaborate as my fantasy, but this was evidence that cameras can’t always see everything.

One of the drawbacks of technology is human reliance on it.

Hopefully improvements will be made to ensure that this can’t happen again.

It was always going to be the case that once technology was brought into football, far from eliminating controversy, it would just make any errors even bigger talking points.

I do actually remember one other time when Hawk-Eye cameras couldn’t be used to make a decision. It was during Wimbledon one year, and I was watching Mansour Bahrami play in the senior’s doubles. He’s known as the Court Jester, so there was tomfoolery aplenty.

Mansour Bahrami skulks his way through the 2009 Nottingham Masters

During one point, the ball went careering off into the sky. After it had eventually landed, the players decided to challenge the line call, more as a joke than as anything serious. Perhaps out of curiosity, the umpire announced that the call was being challenged. Ultimately, a message came up on the screen saying that the point could not be challenged, and so the original call would stand. I guess that the ball had gone out of the range of the cameras, and could not be tracked properly!

But, before that match at Villa Park, I had never seen that happen in football. My question as to what would happen if the cameras didn’t pick the ball up had been answered. In order for me to get my answer, though, there had to be a cost.

Sheffield United might feel that they should have had three points instead of one. And, more potently, AFC Bournemouth have been relegated. They are left to rue what they may very well feel is a crucial bonus point for Aston Villa.

Whether or not it actually is an injustice, we undoubtedly have the problem of people in the game feeling injustice.

This reminds me of the Carlos Tevez affair. In 2007 West Ham United signed Tevez and Javier Mascherano. Tevez played a significant part in helping his new side avoid relegation, most notably scoring the winning goal against Manchester United on the final day of the season. The problem was, Tevez and Mascherano were signed improperly with third party involvement.

The club which went down while West Ham United stayed up felt hard done by, to put it mildly. The fans of that club have had to wait until the start of this season to see their side play Premier League football again, and to feel that injustice finally put right. That club? Sheffield United.

Maybe it is a case that these injustices right themselves over time. This year, the English Football League welcomes Barrow back into its ranks. The club had lost its place in the League in 1972, not simply because of bad results, but by failing to get re-elected.

One match programme which I have collected tells of a similar story. I went to see Cambridge United versus Gateshead in the Skrill Premier Promotion Final 2014. The piece which Gateshead provided on their club history for the programme is titled “Looking to right a wrong”. The club was seeking a return to the Football League after failing to get re-elected some 54 years prior. The column tells me that Gateshead were left with “their demotion widely regarded as the harshest expulsion in Football League history”. Their wait goes on, as I witnessed Cambridge United coming out on top.

The teams line up for the Skrill Premier Promotion Final 2014

Now it falls on AFC Bournemouth to feel ‘what might have been’. It falls on them and their fans to have to wait until they are back in English football’s top flight again before they can feel as if the wrongs have been righted. Just like Sheffield United after the Tevez affair. AFC Bournemouth fans will hope that their wait is not quite as long as that, though, after their owner said that he wants them back in the Premier League “as soon as possible”.

And yet, all this could have been avoided. Aston Villa could have let Sheffield United walk the ball into the net, giving them the lead that they should have had.

I’m not meaning to take issue with Aston Villa in any way. In fact, of the clubs fighting relegation, I thought that the story of Aston Villa fan Dean Smith and Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish leading their side to safety would be the most romantic.

I just wonder, though, whether it would have been better for everyone if Aston Villa had let Sheffield United score. Better for football. Better for sport. Maybe. I’m not sure.

AFC Bournemouth would not suffer that stinging feeling. They would not be considering legal action.

Who knows? Maybe Aston Villa could have bagged themselves a FIFA Fair Play award.

Heels overheads

Much to the annoyance of my mother, the football season has started again.

For me, however, this doesn’t really mean attending too many matches.

I might though, from time to time, venture to pastures unknown, accompanying my dad to watch Stafford Rangers. Before writing this blog, I had a quick look at the new teams in their division, and seeing Shaw Lane Aquaforce amongst them gave me a proper ‘non-League feeling’. Interestingly for me, I note that they’ve got a Gibraltar international in their line-up.

Also, last season I did have a reason for going to a bit of local non-League action, as Stamford moved to their new ground. I went to their first match at the Zeeco Stadium, and then again, on the final day of the season, to see them get their first league win there. The latter contest, against Witton Albion, was an incredible match, with both sides facing relegation going into it. Stamford were two goals down and looked doomed, but they somehow came back to win 3-2. They stayed up and Witton Albion went down.

Stamford celebrate staying up

Obviously, though, I’m interested in football at the highest level as well. I’ve been to some England games, a semi-final of the FA Cup, and the Johnstone's Paint Trophy final in the past twelve months.

However, it is television which provides most of my football intake, hence my mum’s frustration.

With the kick-off to the new season not to be missed, that decided what I would be doing from nine o’clock on Saturday night.

That’s actually a bit earlier than previously, as Channel 5 has acquired Football League highlights, and is showing them in a prime time programme called Football League Tonight.

The first episode had a few teething problems here and there, but the show’s format gave me the biggest surprise. Instead of the running order of matches being determined by division, they were shown all muddled up. I would have expected the Championship to be on first, followed by League One, and then League Two. Of course, working down the divisions in this way doesn’t really work so well now, as fans have to switch over to Match of the Day afterwards, and jump back up to the Premier League. I suppose, from this viewpoint, it would make the most sense for Channel 5 to start off with League Two, and to work their way up, although I doubt that that will happen. Still, it would be better if the matches were shown in some kind of sensible order.

I wanted to see the final Championship matches, so I kept watching until the end. I then had to rewind to see that Aaron Tshibola’s shot for Reading did go over the line. No goal was given, which perhaps cancels out that weird ‘ghost goal’ that Reading ‘scored’ a few years ago against Watford.

I ended up missing the iconic Match of the Day theme, as well as Leicester City’s first two goals. Nevertheless, I was settled in to my night of football, watching the games fly by.

After a while, it was time for Norwich City versus Crystal Palace and some controversy.

Crystal Palace were two goals up, but Norwich City then scored themselves, and were suddenly hunting for an equaliser. It seemingly came when Cameron Jerome skilfully hooked the ball over his head to volley it into the net. But it was disallowed. The referee, Simon Hooper, ruled that Jerome’s foot was high and too close to the defending Joel Ward, and thus a foul. Crystal Palace then went on to score a third, and wrap things up.

The managers seemed to think that Jerome struck a legitimate goal, as did the pundits in the studio. They even showed a clip from last season of Southampton’s Graziano Pellè scoring a goal in a similar fashion.

There’s nothing new about a bit of controversy in the Premier League. Viewers of Match of the Day are used to this kind of thing. There will be some grumbling in Norwich over the next couple of days, but then everything will just return to normal.

So, why take the time to write this blog? A bit of controversy is not out of the ordinary, and nothing is going to change.

I guess, to me, this incident is more controversial than it is to others.

This is not to do with the fact that I was particularly interested in the result of the match. Nor is it to do with the fact that it was Hooper’s first game as a Premier League referee. It is true that he didn’t produce any card for Glenn Murray after he made a challenge early in the game which I’ve seen reds given for. It is also true that Hooper’s decision to disallow Jerome’s effort is the reason why I am writing this blog. However, I am not motivated to write a blog for the sake of criticising first-time referees.

So why do I think that the disallowed goal was so controversial?

It is because I saw a goal being ruled out due to the technique that was used in scoring it, rather than any seriously evident foul play.

To me, this is extremely concerning, especially at this time of year, as I will explain in a moment.

Firstly, I need to establish that I support fouls being given for high boots. The reason for this is that they can be dangerous. However, Jerome had his back to Ward, and his whole body in between his boot and Ward’s head. Therefore, it’s hard for me to say that it was dangerous. When the ball is in the penalty area, footballers tend to take shots. Ward knows this, and when he went towards the ball, he would have been aware of any potential danger.

Of course, soon enough a player is going to be seriously injured by a high boot, and make me look rather foolish. Remember, though, that I support high boots being penalised. The issue is that they need to be dangerous.

Jerome struck the ball so well, but in the position that he was in, other players were bound to be close at hand. When I thought this through, I figured that anyone attempting an overhead kick in the penalty area could now be breaking the rules. In essence, I was considering what it would be like if the entire overhead kick action was to be banned.

A goal scored by a player volleying a ball over their head can be stunning. Some of the greatest and most memorable strikes involve players lifting their boots a long way off the ground. The officials in charge of the sport wouldn’t want to outlaw this kind of action. Would they?

Of course they wouldn’t. This is simply me overreacting.

Yet, as I alluded to earlier, the time of the year at which this took place is also a concerning factor for me.

With the season starting, there are a few new rules and protocols to be observed. For example, the offside rule has been tweaked so that players can now be flagged for attempting to play a ball, even if they don’t touch it.

Though the Jerome incident is not covered by any new law, what if it becomes the new way of dealing with these situations by default? After all, this is the start of the season, where everyone has the mind-set of needing to adopt new regulations. Even if it is unofficial, this would be the perfect time for a new ruling on high boots to be established, and that might well just have happened. Could football become so sanitised that nobody can ever lift their feet above waist height again?

Alright, I’m being a bit wild. Truthfully, I don’t think that anything will change. There will still be spectacular goals, scored from all kinds of incredible angels, and everyone can enjoy watching them for as long as there is football.

This is not to say that I will take nothing away from my contemplation of the first day of the 2015–16 Premier League season. I think that I now realise, more than ever before, that each sport is made up of people performing many different techniques to achieve their aims.

That sounds so feeble to say that, but after spending a whole night thinking about the art of an overhead kick in football, and the need to preserve it as an asset in its sport, I have really come to terms with the wide range of different abilities that athletes can get their bodies to perform, as that is just one example in a single sport.

It is truly extraordinary what the human body can achieve when pushed in pursuit of sporting excellence. While everybody is so obsessed with what the final results will be, and feeling the emotions that only that obsession can bring, there are remarkable feats to be seen. Every single little piece of skill is a skill to be savoured.

Meet international football's newest team

It turns out that watching the World Cup of Darts gives you a haka from the New Zealand team, upset after upset after upset on Saturday night, and an emotional journey to the final for Belgium's Huybrechts brothers. However, one thing that this tournament also gives you is a rare opportunity to watch Gibraltar compete in a televised international sports competition.

Dylan Duo and Dyson Parody once again teamed up to represent the British overseas territory, and they got off to a blistering start in their first match against Poland. The pairing couldn't keep it up though, and registered two defeats in their group.

Gibraltar does have international representation in other sports, such as basketball and cricket, but to have a presence in global football would mean more to them than anything else.

It has been a long and difficult journey for the Gibraltar Football Association (GFA) to become members of UEFA. The story is well-documented elsewhere on the internet, but basically it starts when the GFA applied to join UEFA in the late nineties. Politics got in the way, and UEFA changed its rules so that only United Nations members could join (existing members including England and the Faroe Islands were protected from this). The GFA appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), and they ruled that UEFA must consider the GFA for membership under the laws in force at the time of their initial application. So, in 2006, UEFA gave Gibraltar provisional membership. While Montenegro gained full UEFA membership in 2007, at the same Congress Gibraltar was overwhelmingly rejected. Only England, Scotland and Wales voted in their favour. The GFA went back to CAS, and got the same ruling as they did before. Now the process is repeating itself, as Gibraltar were again given provisional membership in 2012. The vote on full membership will take place in May this year.

I followed the situation avidly in 2006 and 2007, eager to see if there was going to be a new football team propping up qualification groups of the future, à la Andorra and San Marino. Almost every day I'd be frantically typing my searches into Google, desperate to find out any tiny new piece of information. Sometimes this even included putting Spanish articles through the translator. I also attended a seminar given by an experienced 'sports mediator' from CAS, and I asked him about it. As it happened, he was actually working on the case, and told me to "watch this space".

I sense that the current period of provisional membership is a little different, though. For a start, UEFA has included Gibraltar in its draws for youth and futsal qualifying groups. It was engineered so that Gibraltar could not be in the same group as Spain, in the same way that we have seen recently with the prevention of groups involving both Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Georgia and Russia.

Futsal hasn't found its way into the hearts of people here yet, but elsewhere it is a popular five-a-side version of football played on a hard court. And it was a hard court in the south of France where a bit of history was made.

If you were preoccupied with Bradford City reaching the League Cup final, ball boys being kicked, and a non-League team knocking a Premier League side out of the FA Cup, then you'll be forgiven for not noticing the UEFA Futsal Euro 2014 preliminary round qualifiers taking place. It was these which saw a Gibraltarian side travel to Nice to play in their long-awaited first ever UEFA-sanctioned matches. Gibraltar might be excluded from the youth groups which they were drawn into because they take place after the GFA's application could be rejected in May. Crucially, however, the futsal qualifiers took place before that decision, allowing the team to get out there and play.

The players have been used to the eleven-a-side game, and a look at the teamsheet shows a mix of Spanish and British-sounding names. The very first match, interestingly enough, is against Montenegro who, for the time being, are still UEFA's newest members after they were admitted when Gibraltar was not. That aside, and it is a bit of a wake-up call as Montenegro run out 10-2 winners. I, like many over in Gibraltar, follow the text commentary on the UEFA website as the action unfolds. Although not an ideal start with double figures in the concession department, the important thing was that they scored in their first match. Joseph Chipolina got that historic first goal.

An improved showing in their next match saw them only lose 6-2 to their French hosts. I'm no futsal expert, but it looks to me as if they need to work on their defending a bit.

Having already been eliminated, and it left for France and Montenegro to contest for the qualification spot, it was up to Gibraltar to give it all they had in their last match, for this was their big chance to register a win. San Marino stood in their way.

The Sammarinese haven't had the easiest time of it in international futsal. Despite being around for a lot longer than Gibraltar, they were also viewing this match as an opportunity for a first ever victory. Perhaps that showed, as by half time San Marino were 5-2 up, with Matteo Michelotti netting a hat-trick.

Just as it looked like it was going to be an opportunity missed for Gibraltar, they came out determined in the second half, and set about making up the deficit. A goal fourteen seconds after the break, another from Chipolina to make his mark again, and then Liam Clarke completed a hat-trick of his own to draw the scores level. It was to be a happy ending for their Nice adventure, with two further unanswered goals making the final score 7-5 to Gibraltar.

Montenegro go on to the next phase of qualification after topping the group by drawing with France. Gibraltar go away with a creditable third place that should be celebrated. The bearable wait for success goes on for San Marino.

And so, despite not being part of any confederation, or even playing on a grass pitch, I make it that Gibraltar is now international football's newest team.

The future of futsal in Gibraltar is unclear. A summer league has been mooted. An interesting idea would be for them to focus on futsal and become specialists at it (I think that Azerbaijan have done that to an extent with their beach soccer team, and have achieved some decent results). It all depends if UEFA admit them. This is not just an opportunity for regular international football, but there would also be improvements in coaching and facilities.

UEFA has a decision to make in May. There will be politics. Not everyone will vote for the GFA. There may be some representatives voting who have never even heard of Gibraltar before this. But will they get in? In 2007 I was pretty sure that they would, and I was left surprised with the voting, so I wouldn't be so sure with my prediction. This time, however, UEFA may be more resigned to the fact that Gibraltar's membership seems inevitable, as indicated by president Michel Platini. It's true that the GFA can keep coming back to knock on the door because the key thing is that they have CAS on their side, which UEFA cannot ignore.

Can moments of history be left to chance?

I was going to open with a rant about how the travel problems on Tuesday left me sprinting down Olympic Way to Wembley, only to miss the first ten minutes of the match. However, after reading that a Wales fan lost his life that night, the problems which I suffered have been put into perspective.

For fans of the bigger clubs, this international break has provided the opportunity to reflect on how well their teams have fared over the first few games of the season.

It might feel a bit weird for fans of Brighton and Hove Albion to hear their team described as one of “the bigger clubs”, having spent the last five seasons down in League One, and more than a decade in an athletics stadium. However, after joining the growing number of English clubs in concluding that it’s not a great idea to have eight lanes of running track between the fans and the pitch (only West Ham United seem to be thinking in the opposite direction), the South Coast club might just have to get used to tags of greatness. They’d like to hope so, at least.

After promotion last season, the club has moved into their swanky new American Express Community Stadium in Falmer, and blazed their way to the top of the table. Southampton sit just behind, giving the early Championship table a rather similar look to the final League One table last season. Can they stay there? Robbie Savage couldn’t think of a reason for them not to.

I admire what Gus Poyet has achieved with the Seagulls. I thought that the lure of playing Championship football in their new stadium would have been what he used to motivate the players last season, but it is a great feat to get the players to continue their form into the new season. I attended a discussion forum with him once, and he came across as intelligent, funny and just a generally nice guy. I’m with many others, I’m sure, when I expect to see him managing in the Premier League at some point in the future.

Brighton and Hove Albion fans will want to keep hold of him. After all, they couldn’t have wished for a better start.

There is one exception, however. There was a lot of interest in the first competitive match at the Amex. Football Focus chose to present their programme from there, rather than show off their new Salford studio. The fans were all given little flags to wave, too, with each displaying a brand new badge/crest/emblem/logo/whatever-you-want-to-call-it. The atmosphere built up to give a real sense of occasion. This was history. The only problem was that Billy Sharp, of the opposing Doncaster Rovers, nabbed the first competitive goal at the new stadium. That wasn’t in the script.

The home fans would have left happy, though, thanks to their side’s comeback. They will only feel a tinge of disappointment that that first goal didn’t go to one of their own.

The goal, itself, wasn’t the most spectacular. Though he couldn’t stop it, the goalkeeper did manage to take a lot of pace off the ball. It’s fair to say that it ended up trundling over the line. That got me thinking. What if the ball hadn’t got to the line? What if the ball had got to the line, but it wasn’t clear whether it had gone all the way over or not? Of course, these situations have come up many times before. An often controversial decision is made by the referee and the assistant, with a debate on goal-line technology following soon after by fans and pundits alike.

Sharp’s goal, however, was different. It was more than just a goal. It was a moment of history. So, what if it had been one of those controversial goals? What if the first ever competitive goal at Brighton and Hove Albion's new stadium had been something akin to that ‘ghost goal’ in that match between Watford and Reading a few years ago?

The moment of history would be tarnished. That’s not right. In years to come, people would look back with unease, and without having that certain attachment to the memory which such occasions should have provided.

When answering one of the questions at the forum, Gus Poyet said that he preferred football without video technology. He thought that debating refereeing decisions in the pub after the match is what makes the sport enjoyable. That debate, though, has moved away from whether the decisions were right or wrong, and onto whether it is time for technology or not.

That debate isn’t going to go away until it’s introduced. I enjoy watching football without the technology. I think that most other fans do. At the same time, I’m quite sure that I could cope if it was there.

Whatever the future holds, though, one thing that must not happen is for moments of history to be allowed to be corrupted.

Year of the donation game

Football is changing.

Well, maybe not as much as some people would like. The game has stayed much the same over the last hundred years or so, and with FIFA’s continued opposition to video technology, then things look set to stay that way.

So, before I explain how football is changing (yes, it is changing), let me first just introduce you to this blog. I’m interested in loads of sports, but not just the big things. I’m usually hanging around the BBC Sport website, trying to find something which might capture my imagination. Recently I’ve been reading some of the blogs on the site. I like Ollie Williams’ one the most. While still able to talk directly to people who might be reading about a certain sport for the first time, he is still able to put forward the intricate details, which are exactly the kind of things which I find interesting. Hopefully my blog can complement Ollie’s work, as I’ll be aiming to share some of the little things in sport with you, which maybe aren’t so little. That said, I don’t know whether I will be actually blogging again.

Anyway, the change in football is coming in the way we watch it. Earlier this year, Manchester United’s 3–1 victory over Arsenal was the world’s first sports event to be broadcast live in 3D. As well as these technological advances, people are finding new ways to watch football further down the football pyramid.

If we look down to the Blue Square Premier, then we’ll see that Mansfield Town’s 2–0 home loss to Gateshead in February of this year was believed to be English football’s first donation game, or ‘pay what you want’, if you think that sounds better. The brainchild of Mansfield Town’s owners, its purpose is to get as many people into the ground as possible, which Mansfield achieved when they tested it out. Unfortunately for the club’s fans, the performance wasn’t as good as the turnout.

What about the future, though? Has the idea got any legs? Earlier this month, Whitby Town (we’re down to the UniBond League Premier Division, now) held their own donation game, and they saw a boosted crowd. It seems that the initiative is spreading across the country.

One day I’m browsing the Conference website, and I notice that Tamworth, of the Blue Square Premier, are the latest club to be planning a donation game. The official reasoning behind it is to compensate the club’s supporters who were displaced from their usual positions as a result of the fan allocation in their recent home match with Luton Town. I see that the donation game will be their last of the season, and it will be against Ebbsfleet United. Given that I used to own (and apparently manage) Ebbsfleet, I’m intrigued. I figure that Tamworth’s ground can’t be that hard to get to, as I recently saw it from a train window when travelling to an England match. I’ve still got that train ticket, as well. What’s more, Ebbsfleet are in an exciting relegation battle. Above all, though, this is the year of the donation game, and I’m going to one before the end of the season!

I catch my train, and chat to some Leicester Tigers fans I know. I wish them a nice time, as I continue on my journey to Tamworth. At this point, I realise that I don’t know a lot about Tamworth. I remember a BBC trailer for a show called ‘The Tamworth Two’ a few years ago, but I was not interested, as it seemed to be about pigs. Once I arrive, I head straight for the ground, but realise that I’m too early. I find the main entrance, but decide to kill some time by walking round to see if there is anywhere else to get in. The ground is in a very residential area, so you’re never quite sure if you’re peering round to see the way to the turnstiles, or the way to someone’s back garden. I find one small entrance, as well as a slope down to the main entrance. Deciding that I want to be different, I continue walking all the way round the ground again so that I can go in through the small entrance. However, once I get close I notice the ‘home supporters only’ sign, and so I roll my eyes and head for the slope. I end up walking nearly twice around the ground.

I had been before, a long time ago. My dad took me to see his team, Stafford Rangers, play there. All I remember from that match is that it was dire, and that my dad kept edging towards the way out as he anticipated the final whistle. From all the Stafford Rangers matches which he’s taken me to, and all the chanting that I’ve heard, I’d say that Tamworth are their biggest rivals, with Hednesford Town a close second.

Given the animosity for Tamworth that comes as a result of being the son of a Stafford Rangers supporter, as well as my association with Ebbsfleet United, I have no doubt that I want to be with the away fans.

When I finally get to the turnstiles, I am told to fill in a coupon with the amount that I’m donating and my signature. I’m not quite sure why the staff can’t count the money themselves, or why they want my signature. Maybe it’s to stop a party of five all getting in for a penny. I leave my donation, and I’m given a tear off ticket, which doubles as a £10 eye test voucher.

Unsurprisingly, for a game where you can get in for next to nothing, I’m confronted with people after more of my cash as soon as I make my entrance. First of all, there’s a more meaningful donation to a collection for Parkinson's disease which is taking place. Then I pay up for a programme, and after that I enter the 50/50 draw. The ticket seller tries to convince me to donate to the Parkinson's collection, which makes me feel uncomfortable when I tell him that I’ve already done so.

I see a few Ebbsfleet fans where I’ve entered, but it’s mostly Tamworth. I decide to walk round to the other end, and sure enough, it’s all Ebbsfleet fans there. I take my place behind the goal, and the Tamworth lads are doing their warm-up just in front of me. ‘Tammy’ the lamb tries to get involved in the exercises, as well as doing some dodgy pole dancing with one of the goalposts, which was something which I hadn’t seen before. The less said about that, the better.

'Tammy' the lamb works out

As kick-off approaches, the ground fills up. It seems to be pretty packed. There are a lot of away fans surrounding me, all of whom I imagine to be a bit anxious.

While Tamworth are safe, it’s an important day for Ebbsfleet. If they win, then they might be able to stay up, but they are relying on both Eastbourne Borough and Gateshead to drop points.

It’s a pity, because I’d quite like Gateshead to stay up, as well. They play at the Gateshead International Stadium, which is probably better known as an athletics venue. Indeed, the stadium will be hosting a meet on the exciting new IAAF Diamond League later this year. I had a good time when I saw this list for the first time:

• Doha


• Shanghai


• Oslo


• Rome


• New York


• Eugene


• Lausanne


• Gateshead


• Paris


• Monaco


• Stockholm


• London


• Zurich


• Brussels

They’re all the venues for the first Diamond League; thirteen world renowned locations and Gateshead (it’s fantastic, though, that England manages to get two meets). Seeing as the football club plays in a stadium, which truly is of international standard, then I’d kind of like it if that stadium was well-used, and not hidden away in the lower levels of the football pyramid.

With my bizarre reasons for favouring the two clubs established, then I’m already in for some disappointment. Gateshead and Ebbsfleet are in ‘neither can live while the other survives’ territory, as each of them needs the other one to fill a relegation place if they’re going to stand a chance of escaping.

With the stakes set, we’re ready for kick-off. Ebbsfleet begin well, as they need to, but all their balls into the danger area are too close to the goalkeeper, who handles them well enough.

It wasn’t long before the goals started, but I didn’t see the first one. It’s not that I wasn’t paying attention, but it was because I wasn’t in Gateshead. My dad phoned me to tell me that Gateshead had taken the lead. I had expected a few radios pressed to the ear, but I didn’t expect that I was to be the one feeling obliged to tell the man next to me the score. He wasn’t amused.

Shortly afterwards, I saw my first goal of the day. Some dodgy defending in Ebbsfleet’s back line saw Iyseden Christie in on goal, who didn’t make a mistake rounding the keeper to put the hosts into the lead.

The combination of the two scorelines meant that things weren’t looking good for Ebbsfleet, but they were able to respond in next to no time, with Magno Vieira getting on the end of a corner, and netting a beautiful header flicked in at the near post.

The game began to settle down after that, though both sides needed their goalkeepers to save a shot on target. Tamworth went on to have an effort cleared off the line, and the follow-up effort would have gone in if the goal was at the corner flag.

It looked as if it was going to be level at the break, which was not going to be good enough for Ebbsfleet, regardless of results elsewhere. However, with not much happening in the Tamworth defence, a pass is played short just in front of goal, and Ricky Shakes is able to get on the end of it, and put Ebbsfleet in the lead. It’s in incredible turnaround, and Ebbsfleet are doing what they need to do.

The buoyant fans around me have their spirits dampened just moments later, though, as Michael Wylde nods in a Tamworth corner to make sure that the scores are level at half time, after all.

Most of the Ebbsfleet fans make their way to watch from behind the other end for the second half, and I decide to join them. I’m right in the thick of it now, with fans singing and drumming all around me.

As the action starts again, I notice that I’m applauding less. As soon as Ebbsfleet get into the Tamworth half, they waste possession with a long ball forward to nobody.

With that tactic not paying off, Tamworth are able to get good possession at the other end of the field, and Bradley Pritchard puts them back in front with a great strike from the edge of the penalty area into the top left corner.

The pressure’s on Ebbsfleet, and they can’t fashion any good chances. The crowd around me is getting agitated, and they’re being wound up by the Tamworth fans.

Eventually Ebbsfleet create a decent chance, but the shot’s going wide. Fortunately for the desperate Ebbsfleet fans, Scott Ginty is there to divert it into the net, and the season is still alive.

The Ebbsfleet players show great fighting spirit, and a few minutes later Ginty is chipping the keeper. Is it going in? It’s dipping! It’s there! Ginty’s scored again, and I manage to take his photo as he runs off to celebrate.

Scott Ginty celebrates scoring the winner

There’s not long to go, and I receive another call from my dad. He tells me that Eastbourne Borough are winning, which is bad news for me, as that would probably be enough to relegate both Ebbsfleet and Gateshead. I can hardly hear the rest of what my dad says (I think that he is trying to explain how the current results would affect the table), as the crowd becomes more tense.

There are three minutes to add on at the end of the game. Ebbsfleet United are being relegated. My mind turns to MyFootballClub, and whether the project will survive with a club in the Blue Square South. They were already struggling to get the membership that they needed when the club was in the Blue Square Premier. I worry about what the impact of being a division lower will have on the numbers.

I think that the idea behind MyFootballClub was that a pub full of fans would be able to do as good a job as any manager. Unfortunately, the team selection aspect never took off. I think that the idea of fans picking the team would work in the Premier League or Championship, as so many people know the players, and have existing opinions. For many, though, the Blue Square Premier is the world of the unknown, and an internet society won’t be as effective as the manager when it comes to picking the team.

Time is running out for Ebbsfleet. They’re still battling out there, but it’s too late; they’re already winning.

The whistle sounds, and disconsolate players sink to the floor. The manager soon gathers them in a huddle to debrief the season in a few words, before an emotional set of players make their way towards their fans to give them the applause that they deserve. The Ebbsfleet fans were magnificent; they truly love their club. While they share the moment, the PA announcer reads out the results that confirm what we already knew.

Ebbsfleet United applaud their fans, while relegation is confirmed

If you’re also intrigued by the concept of the donation game, then I should imagine that there shall be one coming to a football ground near you. Tamworth have just seen one of their biggest attendances of the season, so there’s no question that it pulls in the fans. That said, it’s unlikely for a big crowd to make up the money lost from allowing people in for whatever they like. Yes, there will be some people looking to get in for some coins they’ve found down the back of their sofa, but that’s not a bad thing. They wouldn’t be at the game otherwise, and it’s important to expose sport to as many people as possible. At the other end of the spectrum will be the loyal fans who will see this as an opportunity to give particularly large sums of money to the club that they love. The most common donation, I reckon, would probably be the normal price of entry, or a bit lower. Also, the club may try and ‘beef up’ donations by having ‘loose change donations’ buckets on the way out, as Tamworth did.

However, I don’t think that the analysis of the revenue should be what dictates whether a donation game should be counted as a success. It’s nice, once in a while, to fill up the ground with as much support as possible. Maybe some new fans will be interested in paying full price for future matches. This could be exactly the kind of treatment that clubs with consistently low turnouts are looking into. Darlington, for example, who will play in the Blue Square Premier next season, play every home game in a near empty stadium (though it is a fantastic stadium). Maybe, if they started their season with a donation game, then they could fill it up a bit.

Perhaps ‘annual bank holiday donation game’ could be a very common phrase in the not too distant future.

Overall, I had a good time at the donation game. It was a shame that Ebbsfleet were relegated, but there was good news for Gateshead fans, as their team avoided the drop after Forest Green Rovers took their place, having somehow managed to lose to the league’s bottom club. Tamworth and Ebbsfleet provided a thrilling game, with some awkward moments (namely a Tamworth player falling over the advertising hoarding, and an Ebbsfleet player colliding with a ball kid both happening within moments of each other), and it was definitely worth my 99p.