FL2: Bournemouth v Torquay United 28th Dec 2009

Certainly came across as patronizing, I do apologize if I have miss judged your intent or indeed your self! I can`t see what`s wrong with telling them the honest truth the way I told it but then again right from day dot on here I have always maintained that I have a problem with constructing things in type the way I mean them to be read! I can`t help it if I`m shit at word things, my worst by far subject at school was English and grammar was the worst part of that, I`m sorry but that`s the best I can do!

What are you on about pal? You said it so basically your admitting you lied! Get of your high horse Merse before you fall off and hurt yourself!

Just delete the ethnicity reference. It is irrelevant when addressiing the issue of the 7 bookings and penalty. Furthermore it again brings up something that moderation is right to be concerned about. Merse should perhaps have treaded more carefully when making the suggestion of (what the US once referred to as) "affirmative action", but he is not lying, aussie. It is a rumour. Just that. And not one, as rjd, and most eloquently, Barton, have already pointed out that needs repeating insofaras it refers to ethnicity. Frankly it weakens any point your e-mail seeks to address and as Ant says, will not endear the reader to your concerns given its tone.

Note to mods: Please feel free to edit reference to potentially offending material contained within this post when editing anything else referring to the potentially offending part. Like Barton, my PCometer is quite high.

Can the FA be seen to act on the demands of a supporter whose team have lost a game due to a dodgy injury time penalty. Regardless of colour or creed it just ain't gonna happen.

I can't give an objective opinion because I could only make a judgement of my own based on the times I have seen him ref in the FA Trophy and The Conference before he became a Football League referee.

I do recall there was a bit of a fuss when he finished top of the Southern League marks for three succesive seasons without getting promoted and it was felt that it was his performances before crowds of any size in The Conference (which does not have a panel of it's own) which held him back.

Rather than ask me if I felt he was promoted on merit, maybe you should ask me if he has retained his place on merit; but I cannot answer that authoritively either because quite frankly I haven't (and what regular spectator would have?) seen him that often at that level either.

I mentioned the "talk" of his ethnicity getting him "fast tracked" as an example of what one heard around grounds and added the time scale as to how long it took him to reach the Football League middle as a counter balance.

Perhaps such "talk" is another example of the extra barriers that officials of certain cultural and ethnic backgrounds feel they have to overcome; and perhaps the turning down after three times topping the rankings of the Southern League were seized on by some as some sort of ethnic rejection that others don't need to.

My personal view is that only the best should make up the rosters of the best, and I am sceptical when some of these "best" seem to get placed into fixtures which will avoid them getting too harsh a test so as not to damage their ratings on the way to fast tracking their way to the top.

Conversly, it is my view that if a referee takes nearly two decades to attain the required standard, there must be something radically wrong with his performances over that time to have held him back.

Certainly, if after all that time in the game a referee finds the need to issue twelve yellow cards in a game and still have his control of that match questioned; questions need to be asked as to his suitability to that level of football and his ability to handle the intensity of pressure referees are placed under at that level.

There has to be a happy medium and there are surely enough good referees in the country to fulfill that criteria.

The same rumblings have frequenbtly cropped up when the name of Leroy Rosenior is mentioned and there are those who tried to promote him a future "First Black England Manager", which (as anyone who knows me well enough would expect me to say) I find totally ridiculous.

Dave, can I suggest that this thread closes before it turns into another 'Pikeygate'.