BfB

McCall is choosing the lazy route of attacking officialdom when he would be wiser to deal with the indiscipline of his own players.

In the wake of Bradford City’s 3-0 defeat to Carlisle United in the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy earlier this week, Carlisle’s local paper, Times & Star, has run a sports opinion piece calling for Bantams boss Stuart McCall to be fined for his post-match comments that the decision to send off his full back Simon Ramsden was an “embarrassing” one.

Stuart was upset with referee Tony Bates after a second yellow card was issued to Ramsden on the stroke of half time for tugging on the shirt of home winger Matty Robson. With the game evenly poised at 0-0, it was clearly the decisive point of the evening and one would assume it was fair both managers were allowed to pass their judgement on it, yet with McCall disputing it and home manager Greg Abbott arguing it was a just sending off, it seems the paper has ruled one opinion is correct and one opinion is wrong – so Stuart should be fined and censured.

It’s become an increasingly frustrating aspect that, at lower league level, managers so often disagree on the way key decisions go and the local media falls in line with sticking up for their own. Within the Times & Star piece it even admits it is “easier to throw flames at an opposition manager rather than the blokes we speak to every week.” Imagine if the boot was on the other foot and it had been a Carlisle player controversially sent off, would the Times & Star be calling for their manager to be fined if he’d labelled the decision “embarrassing”, or would they be issuing opinion pieces calling for video technology to overturn travesties of justice?

The sad fact is that a discussion about the rights and wrongs of Ramsden’s dismissal becomes almost impossible as both sides feverishly stick up for their team. Looking at the moment on TV again, it’s clear Ramsden holds back Robson as he tries to run forward. Yet crucially, Carlisle don’t have the ball after Scott Neilson, a few yards away from Ramsden and Robson, fairly wins possession and is running the other direction as Ramsden grabs the shirt. It is therefore not clear if it really was a free kick, and it certainly isn’t clear if a yellow card is deserved. This is a highly subjective decision, so how anyone from Carlisle can rule it cut and dry and attack anyone who questions it is beyond me.

It’s also worth pointing out the backdrop of poor refereeing McCall went into the game still seething from. Imagine if Bates had been in charge for City’s game against Rotherham three days earlier? Lee Probert decided to allow Millers striker Drew Braughton and defender Pablo Mills off the hook for a series of crude and highly physical challenges that left home defenders lying on the floor in a daze and Michael Boulding on crutches for the Christmas period. Rotherham got away with it and won the game, then in the next game McCall sees one of his players sent off for something minor in comparison.

In the Times & Star piece it is ludicrously argued “Mr Bates was doing the game a service by dismissing Ramsden, not ruining it.” Perhaps McCall should post them a DVD copy of the Rotherham game to find out their opinions on elbows. Funnily enough the Rotherham Advertiser didn’t feel it fit to mention their team’s questionable methods.

Which sums up the sheer hypocrisy of local papers. The Times & Star can climb on its high horse and write that, “Stuart McCall should know that “embarrassment” is what the rest of us feel when managers swap decency for unjustified venom”, but soon after they’ll be devoting column inches to their grumbles of their own manager – as they have before. Local papers are, to be fair, only replicating the behaviour of their manager, but they are writing for an audience of their own supporters and trying to stay on friendly terms with the boss so they can keep selling papers in their area, the moral high ground is not theirs to claim.

Ultimately, it’s time their was more honesty in the lower reaches of the game. Why managers can’t admit to have benefited from unjust decisions is a question officials should be pondering, why local newspaper hacks can’t form their own opinions instead of what the manager says is another readers might want to bring up.

The Times & Star accuses McCall of “laziness”, the Bradford City manager would be within his rights to throw such an accusation firmly back at the finger pointer.