If today's referee is, indeed, Mr R J Martin of Weston-super-Mare, then here's a previous assessment of his, ahem, competence:
Water, water, everywhere...
By Nick Pullen on Apr 30, 08 10:47 AM
I KNOW you shouldn't criticise referees - but what was Mr R J Martin of Weston Super Mare thinking of when he started Halesowen Town's BGB Southern Premier play-off clash with Chippenham Town!
Heavy rain had fallen for some considerable time prior to the kick-off and it was plain to see the pitch was totally unplayable by 7-45 pm as large areas of surface water could be seen on the pitch.
This was made more apparant by the floodlights, where you could see the water shimmering in the reflection.
Nevertheless, Mr Martin, in his wisdom started the game and the farce commenced immediately when Halesowen goalkeeper Mark Osborn went down to smother a regulation through ball and promptly slid betyween 10 to 15 yards, taking the ball out of the area.
Technically, isn't that a handling offence!
With the ball splattering to a halt everytime it hit the surface, it was beyond my comprehension that the ref allowed the game to continue for 32 minutes before coming to his senses and calling a halt.
A check with the weather forecast would have told him that rain was predicted to fall until 11pm - so the situation was only going to get worse - not better.
But that wasn't the best of it. Stuart Pierpoint's header was clearly handled by Chippenham's Ross Adams who prevented it from going into the net.
Penalty and red card is the correct proceedure.
However, it became clear after several minutes of faffing around, that referee Martin had lost sight of who the culprit was.
After consultation with his linesman, Mr Martin duly awarded the penalty, but there was no sign of any card, red or yellow for that matter.
So there's your answer. Any defender who commits a similar crime -run and hide and you'll get away with it!