New Year Begins With Controversy - Part 2

In my previous post (New Year Begins With Controversy) I offered to print any official response from Weston-super-Mare AFC. I did receive an email from [name deleted upon request] yesterday afternoon. [sentence removed to protect privacy]

[Name deleted upon request]'s email, entitled 'Your recent blog. has false information.' does find one point that I made that was overstated. Referring to the statement on the WSM website about the Bath City match being postponed, I wrote:

'It then lists no less than three other occasions in the last month when referees have reversed earlier decisions about their club's matches proceding'

Upon further investigation I can find no evidence that one of these matches involved a referee reversing a previous call. This was 2 December home match against Hampton & Richmond Borough. In this instance, as far as I can tell, the referee made a late call due to heavy rain in the early evening, but did not reverse a previous decision.

Further allegations have surfaced, though, about another of the three matches listed on the Weston site. This was the 28 December away match against Woking. I have received this statement second hand, reportedly from a Woking supporter:

'Ref passed the pitch as fine at 1pm, Weston arrived and the ref's view on the pitch suddenly changed! Luckily Woking had got the referee's assessor, who had a word with the ref to set him right, and the game went ahead......'

This sounds very similar to the circumstances that arose on Friday, although as far as I know no referee assessor was present.

Another development in this story is the publication of an interview with Bath City captain Jim Rollo in the Bath Chronicle. Rollo gave general support to Antony Coggins' decision to reverse his previous decision to allow the game to be played, saying:

'We were walking round the pitch thinking "this is not too bad" and were giving them (Weston) a bit of stick because they were saying "no, it’s not too good." The referee’s made the decision and, after training on it, you can see why he’s called it off. When you put your boots on it is a bit different.'

The article is entitled 'Referee Made the Right Call Says Rollo,' but this is overstating his endorsement. He merely says, 'you can see why he’s called it off.' Seeing how Rollo played an excellent match at Woking where there was so much snow and ice on the pitch that the lines had to be painted in blue, it is hard to believe that he would not have wished the Weston match to proceed.

The other interesting point is that Rollo has now confirmed that Weston were lobbying for the match to be postponed (although it is not clear from his statement who exactly was saying 'no, it’s not too good'). Considering how marginal the problems with the playing surface were on Friday, and how Mr. Coggins had endorse the pitch's suitability so emphatically half-an-hour previously, it is hard not to draw the conclusion that Weston did not want to play the match for other reasons. Abandoning this match was not just inconvenient. It also cost many Bath City and Weston-super-Mare supporters a lot of time and money.

As was pointed out in a post on the Unofficial Weston-super-Mare AFC Fans Forum my previous article does not spend much time discussing the culpability of the referee, Mr Coggins. This was mostly because referees do not explain their actions, and as a result there was little to discuss. Although it might not yield any results, I have however written to the Oxfordshire FA refereeing supervisor (where I believe Mr Coggins is registered) for a statement. If something is received I will publish it here.