22-0! Oh Dear!

I've said many times this season that I've felt for the college team at NNC, as they're up against sides of much higher calibre and should have probably been pulled from the league long before the day after this game. This match, their 5th and worst of them all, was eventually their last official one of the season.

Cutting a long story short, they were hammered 22-0 by a very well-oiled Derby College side. Surprisingly they did finish without any sendings off, not through a want of trying though as Wes, who I'd already sent off once and booked on another occasion, was initially booked for a bit of a kick out, before purposely handling the ball preventing a Derby attack. I just gave him a word though as the score was at 20-0 and there was just 5 minutes to play, and also NNC had already been reduced to 9 players after a mass of injuries. Certainly a red on another day though!

The match itself was easy to officiate. There were a couple of clear penalty decisions given in Derby College's favour, and the only other challenge faced was the earache I was being given by a young NNC full back who, from about 15-0 onwards was asking me to blow for full time in sympathy! I had to sternly tell him at one stage that I couldn't do this with his reply being "of course you can, you've got the whistle!" I simply informed him I was a football referee, not a boxing ref! I did feel sorry for them though. Hopefully, now they've been withdrawn from the league they'll face much closer opposition in future.