VAR Lines (Don't Do It)

Kick Off

It’s been quite the fortnight hasn’t it? Apologies for the lack of newsletter last week, personal reasons meant I was absolutely not in the right frame of mind to write something fun and frivolous, Arsenal losing didn’t help either, but it was remiss of me because so much went on that I would have liked to talk about; Van de Ven having a shocker and all the very funny tweets that came out of that, Wrexham getting promoted again, and of course, Leverkusen winning the Bundesliga for the first time ever, the win sealed by a thumping 5-0 victory over Werder Bremen in which my beloved Granit Xhaka scored.

We’ve had a wild European week in which every English club but Villa went out. A week where Bernardo Silva took a truly appalling penalty, PSG prevailed, and Dortmund, having threatened their customary unseriousness, managed to actually pull it out of the bag and that’s even before mentioning that Emi Martinez almost got sent off mid shoot out.

But all that was basically a decade ago in football terms, so let’s turn our attention to this weekend, which really did Give in terms of drama and comedy.

Let’s start on Saturday where it was a battle to the bottom with Sheffield United, Luton and Burnley playing.

Luton were visited by the patchy Brentford and sadly allowed themselves to be turned over, losing 1-5 to the Bees, including a worldie from Wissa.

Now I’ve said before that Luton are one of those teams where the fanbase seems pretty awful but the club is decent and this was proven by the attendance of Stephen “Tommy Robinson” Yaxley-Lennon in the home end. Vile. BUT, ignoring the supporters, I will of course miss Luton when they’re gone, for the very obvious reason (Rob Edwards) but also because they are quite good fun. They really should ban that cunt from attending though.

Up the M1, Sheffield United hosted Lancashire relegation rivals Burnley and showed exactly why they’re rooted to the bottom of the table, shipping four goals, scored by four different players, with only one in reply.

The other Premier League game on Saturday was Wolves Arsenal, a game I was quite frankly dreading after Villa and Bayern. My fears were unfounded though and it was actually a fairly stress-free game, frustrating yes, but I didn’t have the sheer terror I sometimes do watching us play. It ended 0-2 after a lucky scuffed shot from Trossard and a snooker shot from Martin and what was really great is that it just felt like a nice game afterwards. Gary O’Neill was magnanimous, praised his team and said he was actually happy, despite the result, we went top of the table, Leo gave a very sweet post match interview and let’s spare a second for Theo Walcott as a pundit too. He’s brilliant! So calm and measured, happy to show his colours but not in an obnoxious way, I think he’s neat.

On Sunday I was out for the early kick offs but kick offs they were! With due respect to the four teams and acknowledging the number of goals scored, I think we can skip swiftly past Palace 5 West Ham 2 and Villa 3 Bournemouth 1 and move instead to Everton 2 Nottingham Forest 0.

I logged onto Twitter after three glorious hours in the company of some of my favourite gals, full of margaritas and tacos and one of the first things I saw was this from Forest.

Now, we’ve all been the recipients of some terrible decisions. Last season PGMOL apologised numerous times. Off the top of my head there was the Brentford offside v. Arsenal, there were several occasions for Palace I think, this season we’ve already had the ‘good process’ scandal, inconsistencies galore and many marginal offsides [ed: there’s no such thing].

It’s fair to say refereeing in the UK could be better, I don’t think that’s unreasonable to say nor do I think we don’t deserve better standards. However, referees will always be damned if they do, damned if they don’t, it’s an occupation where by its very nature, you simply cannot win.

However, one thing I think is currently OK is bias. Referees are people who want to do an officious rules based job, they aren’t people who’d think it was funny or justified or even have the sneakiness to act in such a way to throw a game in ‘their’ favour. Especially not a VAR. So there were three dodgy penalty shouts in the Forest game. OK fine, that’s bad luck and sometimes it can feel like you’re on the wrong end of all the decisions but at the end of the day, if you can manage to put the ball in the net more than your opponents it shouldn’t matter. It wasn’t as if Everton won 5-4 or they were given a dodgy penalty that gave them victory. If things aren’t going your way, make them go your way. There’s no conspiracy in officiating, it is simply, at its worst, incompetent. This is Italy or Spain, countries with proven refereeing bribery scandals, this is England. We fucking love to be cops in England, surely you’ve noticed this? A conspiracy of that nature just wouldn’t fly.

It would be lovely if all the decisions made were completely consistent, completely fair and could be shown to be without bias, but no-one is ever going to believe this, they want things to fit their agenda. Remember Fergie time? Proven to be nonsense, but that didn’t mean it didn’t feel like it was a thing to the clubs stung by a late United goal. It’s exactly what Leverkusen are doing this year, playing and playing and playing until the last second, not giving up, not settling, that’s all, it’s just a good team doing what a good team do.

And so on the flipside, when your team is doing badly, where there are decisions that don’t go your way, when it happens more than once, it’s natural to turn on the officiating, to the ‘if onlys’ but putting out statements on social media like Forest have done, talking about it like Nuno and Neco have done, it just comes across as childish and lacking in agency.

Speaking of childish, let’s talk about Manchester United (sorry not sorry lol).

Saturday saw the first of the two FA Cup semi-finals at Wembley, between Chelsea and City. It was an entertaining if exasperating game as not a Chelsea fan, but a City hater. Why couldn’t the dark blues just score?!? And let’s not mention the “handball” by Grealish, I’ve spent enough time talking about refs this week already.

Anyway, to coin a phrase and continue a bit: City won.

Which brings us to Sunday, Coventry v. Manchester United in the second semi final.

Upon leaving my friends at Kings Cross station it was 1-0 United, McTominay, obviously. Then it was 2-0, Maguire of course. And then there were three, yes, Bruno Fernandes. Sure, another Manchester derby final, great *sad thumbs up*

BUT WAIT. Coventry scored not once, not twice, but thrice, to bring it to extra time. The timeline went mental, the memes and tweets were either garbled nonsense or complete and utter headloss (often both in the same tweet). Say what you like about United, their unifying factor is truly a wonder to behold.

Extra time came and nearly went without any incident, well, I was made to watch the Liverpool game so at least no incident worthy of a notification and a buzzing wrist.

The it happened. A buzz I ignored because I was doing something in the kitchen, then I sat down and gasped the biggest gasp when I saw this:

Only for my high to be cruelly snatched away when this appeared:

I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of the legitimacy of the offside, for what it’s worth I think if it’s offside it’s offside, it’s disappointing for the haters, for the banter, for the moment, but it is what it is, and if you don’t like the decision, it’s the rules that need changing, not that specific decision. Would I have loved it to stand? Of course! It would have been an all timer of an evening on Twitter if it had, when it was already good enough at that point, but sadly it didn’t, sadly Coventry couldn’t quite clear the penalties hurdle and so for another year running I couldn’t give a shit about the FA Cup and actively don’t want to watch it. (Yes this is my issue! I’m not assuming this of anyone else!).

Whilst all this was going on, Dortmund were this close to ending Leverkusen’s unbeaten run when of course, they popped up with another late equaliser and saved it. Many many draws is indeed Invincibles heritage so good for them (but boo really because as you know, Dortmund are my guys in Germany).

The only other European thing of note I want to mention is the Clasico, which was last night at the Bernabeu.

Barcelona took the lead, only for a Vini Jr penalty to put things even. Then Fermín López score for Barca, only for Lucas Vázquez to run down the other end of the pitch to make it 2-2 almost immediately.

Sealing it one way or the other was left to the only person it could have fallen to: Jude Bellingham.

There truly aren’t enough superlatives to describe Jude. He’s a wonder on and off the pitch and I pray his career is unburdened by scandal or major injury.

Half Time

I’ve said a LOT about things that would usually fall into this category (mainly reffing) this week, so instead let me do the thing I said I was going to do then never really did: give some non-football recommendations for stuff.

This is a wonderful article, that might seem boring af at first but is actually fascinating, about how, basically, we manage to stay online.

It also reminded me of one of my favourite things, Deep Sea by Neal Argawal

This made me laugh a lot.

Finally, if you’re in the market for a new pin badge, may I recommend Weird Medieval Guys or this adorable Biceratops, available here, and here.

Full Time

There’s actually been quite a lot of decent content these past couple of weeks, which is a nice upturn as Twitter was seriously faltering for a little bit. Anyway here are some of my faves.

Palace trolling Forest is very funny and exactly what Twitter football admins should be doing.

I mean fair enough tbh, they are one of my fave bromances so happy to have him on the payroll.

I support Just Stop Oil now x

The best take on the FA Cup replays tbqhwy

An absolutely golden throwback to a beaut piece of Football Twitter. Og below for context if you’ve never seen it.

On a weekend where I’ve seen more chat than ever before about want.ing a three day weekend, it seems only right that we have a day for chores, a day for activities and a Super Sunday (lying on the sofa watching football all day)

I have a theory that Rob Jones is the new Mike Dean, he’s got the arrogance and the showmanship, more so than any other ref in the league at the moment, most of whom are either very serious and/or very anonymous. So thank you to No Score Draws for this tweet which has added fuel to my fire

And which I’ve condensed into the salient moment here

Something for the “next slide please” stans among us.

Drip of the Week

The thing about this newsletter is that I do it for fun. I don’t consider myself either an influencer or influential, the audience is decent, the opens are decent but I’m no Grace on Football, no Stadio, no Billy Carpenter or Swiss Ramble.

So I was surprised and delighted when Brockwell United contacted me about their new kit launch, which happened this Saturday just gone, asking me to include it in TWUTAB.

Brockwell United FC (BUFC), a grassroots club for women, non-binary and genderqueer people, was founded in 2017 by husband and wife Ximene and Andrew Weaver-Gilbert after Ximene struggled to find a beginners friendly football team. The team host weekly training sessions in Bermondsey, led by their Head Coach Rose, is part of the 5 and 7 a-side Super Liga league in Waterloo and hosts friendlies with other grassroots teams every Monday evening in Kennington. The club’s ‘Removing Barriers to Entry’ commitment includes free spaces for people on Universal Credit, thanks to funding by the National Lottery.

Now how TWUTAB is that?

And the other thing that’s pretty TWUTAB? Goalies. I love a goalie and for the first time in their history, BUFC have a bespoke goalkeeper jersey, inspired by the Lionesses and Mary Earps.

Chair of BUFC Sophie Page explains the story behind the shirt, designed illustrated by Donatella Esposito

“The new goalkeeper kit is fierce and bold and symbolises the respect we have for goalkeepers. It can be a punishing role, but so rewarding in those difficult moments in a game. Even though the Lionesses lost their World Cup final game against Spain, as a team we celebrated big when Earps saved that penalty. We recognised the confidence and power required to make that type of save with the world watching. I’m so excited to launch the new goalkeeper kit”

The event that launched the kit raised money for The Baytree Centre, a Brixton-based charity providing education and support to over 800 local women and girls, who you can also donate to here.

I guess you want to see the kit right? Well here it is. I’m always here for non-traditional colour combinations and grassroots is somewhere you can really lean into that. Of course black, white and orange isn’t that wild but it’s still a move away from the traditional blues and reds of most clubs. Isn’t it lovely? I particularly like the shorts, they’re great fun and overall it has a joyous Keith Haring vibe to it in the illustrations by Donatella Esposito.

The progressive pride flag features on the shirts too, which I will always love.

These brilliant pictures were taken in Brockwell Park by photographer Lucien Phoenix. Do check out their instagram (linked), they take really lovely portraits.

As we’ve seen over the past few weeks, assaults on trans and gender non-conforming folk are being embedded deeply into our government’s rhetoric and policy but as with every other social struggle it’s the grassroots movements that will save us, whether it’s by protest, campaigning or simply offering community and a safe space to marginalised people so we celebrate clubs like Brockwell and all the others at the bottom of the football pyramid for doing this and giving everyone a hopeful and joyous place to enjoy the game.

On a completely different note, Brazilian club Vasco de Gama released a new commemorative shirt the other weekend, celebrating their top scorer, Roberto Dinamite, who died last year and boy is it gorgeous. The shirt they wore for their game had the additional of a ‘Thank you Roberto’ graphic. There were also Roberto Dinamite burgers at the ground…

Finally, it’s been a bumper two weeks for glorious kit launches so I can’t leave without mentioning the absolutely beautiful adidas v Flamengo kits that were released recently. I love them so fucking much, yes, so much I had to swear, but seriously, look at them:

Thirst Trap

This week’s Thirst Trap is nearly hero, Coventry’s Haji Wright. I don’t really know much about him other than he came to Coventry from Turkey in the summer, plays for the USMNT and is 6’4”. And honestly? Sometimes having a nice face and being tall is all it takes.

So there we go, another week, another TWUTAB. Lots of midweek fixtures this week which I’m looking forward to (bar the Arsenal game, it’s too tight and too stressful and I simply cannot handle losing), including the Milan derby tonight (Monday) and then next week, for anyone in or near London, there’s a live Wrighty’s House at King’s Place! I’ve secured my ticket, would be lovely to meet more of you if you can get down.

Until next time!