Tuesday, March 24

The appealing Kevin Nolan

Say what you like about Kevin Nolan, but watching the highlights of the Sunderland game on Match of the Day, you do realise how good he is at appealing to referees. First he was held back by Larrsson while going for Matt Jarvis's cross. After this happened he sank to his knees, raised his arms to the sky King Lear-style and then theatrically pummelled the turf with his fists.

In the second half he was held back by Vergini only to be incorrectly given offside because the ball had came off O'Shea. Nolan adopted the shocked expression of a man whose house had just been razed by rampaging Vandals and Visigoths, running to the referee, imploring for justice with his hands and declaring "it came off him!" When our Kevin retires you do feel he might have a career in the dramatic arts ahead of him.

3 comments:

The Demon Barber said...

Pete - if you're offside when the ball is played, that's the flag up. If the ball subsequently strikes a defender on its way to you - even milliseconds later - the original offside stands, although you might get away with it if the assistant is slow to flag and bottles it. The exception would be if the ball ricochets out of a tackle and the defender's touch is deemed concurrent.

I really must get out more and stop taking these refereeing courses!

Pete May said...

I'm going to have to read up on some FA rules here Demon Barber… On Match of the Day the pundits appeared to agree that as the ball struck O'Shea it played Nolan onside. Though looking at the replay again, he was, as you say, fractionally offside milliseconds before O'Shea headed it, so seems you're right. Though is there an argument Nolan was inactive? Look forward to you reffing a game at Upton Park though hope you don't have to take charge of Kevin Nolan as he'll run the game for you!

Anonymous said...

The key issue of this incident was that Nolan was actually onside when the ball was last played by a West Ham player. It was only after that last West Ham touch that he strayed into an 'off-side' position. The 'off-side' position was then rendered inmaterial as the ball was then headed on by An opponent, O'Shea.