World Cup Relative Success (From York Press)

World Cup Relative Success

11:27am Monday 28th June 2010

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So we’re out of the World Cup and those who support teams in the lower leagues will we amazed at the furore over one poor decision from an official that denied England a goal.

If you watch football in the lower leagues then poor decisions appear to be the norm, at least from my one sided view when watching York City FC.

Having said that, goals change games, match psychology is a subject mostly ignored as boring by pundits but luck of the bounce, the injustice of a decision, the perceived effort of colleagues, the support from the crowd, even the journey to the ground, all makes a difference to how the 90 minutes pan out. I can’t count the number of games I’ve watched where a goal given (sometimes via a penalty) or a goal disallowed has changed the game. So don’t let’s shoot the players, the manager, the FA, Maradonna (well you’d have to include him wouldn’t you) over a shocked performance following what started to look like an England team in full flow, playing football as we know they can. Still now we know how the Germans felt when that goal was given in 1966, they felt it was wrong and they went on to lose.

Still, I hope FIFA and the FA will wake up to the use of goal line technology (is that cameras as it is in Rugby) to assist (yes to assist) the Referee in making critical decisions. Decisions that decide goals and change games.

Anyway let’s count our blessings that we didn’t lose any games, we went out to a team that took their chances brilliantly, and wish Germany luck for the next round. You see if you go back far enough we probably all have Saxon ancestors from Germany anyway. So in a way this was more of a game between relatives and the ones living over there won. Come on you cousins!!!!