Graham Poll! Top Notch Referee (Not)

[crofter]

... As Alan Sugar Might Say ... YE'RE FIRED!!!!!

Absolutely hilarious performance tonight, he seemed to lose it in the last 15 minutes eh??
God knows how many sendings offs and Christ knows how many yellow cards he brandished mostly for petty stuff - can anybody work out what happened at the final whistle though, did he blow the whistle before the "Third" Aussie Goal???
Entertaining if nothing else as the "Thing from Tring" Strikes Again!!

[todge]

crofter wrote:

> Absolutely hilarious performance tonight, he seemed to lose it
> in the last 15 minutes eh??
> Entertaining if nothing else as the "Thing from Tring" Strikes again

I never thought I'd use Graham Poll as a metaphor for the Home Office but........
Do we have any competent administrators left in this country ?

[spunkie]

Like the England team; good but vastly overrated!

[IdolDroog]

Fucking typical of all the referee's who could royally rape a match it'd have to be the English one wouldn't it.

Didn't see the full match, just a few bits of the highlights but christ on a bike....reminded me of that performance by another ref from about 25 yrs ago where a ref just gave out loooads of cards in one match. It was on one of those Worlc Cup Moments type shows on bbc3

[DanG]

Funny thing is, they were talking him up as a potential ref for the Final too...that's long gone now.

It was an utter shambles from start to finish...Australia had at least three clear cut penalties, only one of which was awarded (Poll and his assistants somehow contrived to ignore Viduka being wrestled to the ground in the first half and also the other blatant Croatian handball in the second half).

Then we have the Croatian who needed three yellow cards before he could be sent off (even then, after the final whistle). The pundits and the the TV technicians doing the captions realised that it was his second yellow straight away, yet neither Poll or either of his assistants cottoned on to the fact.

I have to say I'm glad the Aussies got the result they needed (even if their second goal was offside, they deserved the luck for the missed penalty decisions), because Poll was in severe danger of drastically worsening Anglo-Aussie relations with this performance. I have to question the logic of appointing an English referee for this game as well, given the historic sporting rivalry between our two nations...if an Argentinean ref turned in the same performance in an England match (which resulted in defeat or elimination), then there would be cries of conspiracy and the tabloids would be calling for his head (literally).

On the bright side, if I were Guus Hiddink or the Aussie FA, I'd be appealing practically every yellow card the Aussies received (especially with a view to getting Emerton available for the Italy game), simply because the official who awarded them was demonstrably incompetent. God knows they've got all the video evidence they'll ever need.....

[Jacques]

The standard has been appaling and then this twatbadger comes along and takes it to a new low, what a wanktractor.

His position as a Premiership referee should be reconsidered.

[colonel]

I spent most of yesterday watching Graeme Hick making his 100th 100 for Worcs.....and then recovering. [Hic!].

So I only cottoned on to Mr.Poll this morning....

OK, OK. So you might miss penalties- isn't that the assistants' jobs to keep an eye on areas that the ref misses. But THREE yellow cards. He clearly wasn't keeping a note of names in his book. Now for a ref- that is unforgivable.

Anyone know Jack Taylor/Clive Thomas/Keith Hackett/that bloke from Eton's phone numbers...?

[davewells]

Dipstick of the first degree. Australia should have had 3 pens not one and Croatia should have had 8 players left on the pitch. Made the English look special hasn't he - especially stupid.

[Steve R]

On behalf of all the panel, I would like to congratulate Jacques for his use of the words twatbadger and wanktractor in the same post, for which he is awarded this month's Quimtruffle Word-Usage Prize.

However, his valiant effort to use both words in the same sentence has, I'm afraid, been disallowed by the panel.

[mrmcfister]

Dire..embarrassing..how can you not remember booking someone.?...typical of the sport that the player didn't walk though!