Egham (h) - 4th March

[Sue]

Ha ha I get enough of the kitchen jokes at home thank you !

 

He thinks I know nothing about football as well LOL

[lino]

Very disappointing performance ,I do wish we could hold our hands up and say we were not good enough instead of trotting out all these lame excuses.According to my uncle Slough at one time played Saturdays and then Mondays because it was greyhound racing night on Tuesdays ay the old Dolphin ground, they also had jobs outside of football so these excuses to my mind don't wash.

Like every other Slough fan I want promotion but I would suggest its beyond our reach now unless the other contenders all fail in the coming weeks.

[RebelsAndBlues]

Your uncle is called Hotspur is he?

[Curtis]

In my opinion the referee was very poor and did have an influence on the result.

 

He allowed way too many very poor tackles and challenges to pass with a talking to rather than yellow cards, which meant Egham could continually break up the play with fouls..... and if Lake had received the yellow he deserved in the first half would he still have shoved Smith to the ground on the edge of the box in second half, and would the challenge by the Egham 9 still have been made on Foulser resulting in us going down to ten men?

 

Referees often set the way a game is played by the way they deal with bad challenges within the first 20 minutes of the match...... and this ref seemed to have forgotten he had cards in his pocket until about the 40th minute when he carded Woozeley. I just hope an assessor was there last night and we don't get this guy refereeing any more of our matches this season.

[Windsor Rebel]

Cant blame the ref last night for the defeat in my opinion. At 1-0 down we were still in the

game. Once they got their second we were fighting an uphill battle. Still think we will

make the play-offs though, as the team on their day are more than good enough for

this level of football.

[Hammer_rebel]

We lose one game and we're not contenders for playoffs! Don't talk nonsense

[HorshamRebel]

As Neil said the last few weeks, we had 3 lives left in his mind.

 

Now we have TWO

[Nathan]

One defeat in seven, and the cries of "we were awful" and "we're not good enough" have already started. Isn't that supposed to be my job?

 

I honestly don't think we played that badly last night. We were by no means superb, but were simply beaten by a side who on the night were better than us. That was bound to happen sooner or later!

 

Going down with a whimper against sides like Uxbridge or AFC Hayes is something to get upset about, and I've seen us play much worse than last night against those sorts of teams this season.

[Ian]

There were a few disappointing things about last night but the most for me was the reaction by some of our own supporters. Yes the ref was inconsistent and the two stoppages when he should have played advantage were bad but he didn't have half as bad a game as some make out.

 

More than one person, including Neil and another of our officials, have commented that Adam's injury didn't come from a foul or certainly with no intent. Despite that some of our fans constantly demand red cards and scream that he's a "cheating cu**" for not giving it. Another example was the caution for Ed which caused another barrage of abuse from Slough fans. It was directly in front of me and whilst he won the ball you cannot challenge two footed with studs showing. There is nothing in the law book that says a tackle is legal just because you win the ball. Clear caution.

 

Maybe my view has changed since I qualified as a referee but I thought last night some of our fans went way over the top with their comments and reactions.

[Neil Baker]

 Actually Gary we said 4 a while back, and we now have 3 ;-) But we include draws in that 3 too!

 

Still on track!

[A Rebel and a Saint]

To be honest I came away from the game in the same opinion as Ian. I was appalled at the behaviour of some of our fans last night, screaming for red cards all over the place when there were, in my opinion, no red card fouls all game. Granted he made some very strange calls but we have had bad refs before and still won games.

 

As a team we had an off night, it was going to happen at some point, and yes we were disappointing but we did have some chances before they speed, and you cannot manage against mistakes like the ones that led to their second goal. We just need to get going, go again Saturday and see what happens come the end of the season. There's still a lot to play for. COYR!

[Sir Rebel1965]

5 home games and 6 away with a few banana skin fixtures in there.

 

Neil and Jon will need to keep the boys concentrations focused to make sure enough points are obtained.

 

Still think the Rugby game will be key for us and them.

[HorshamRebel]

Thanks for putting me right Neil.

 

The one thing that has been great to see the last few weeks is that the players have been enjoying being on the pitch and playing with a smile.

Everyone is going to have an off day now and again, including fans.

 

So let's get behind them as we know we can, on Saturday.

Show the players and management we are completely behind them and believe in them from the point they walk out to the point the go back in.

 

As others have said, a lot of people went over the top with what they were shouting at the ref, especially at the end of the game when he was walking back in, which was out of order.... BUT when we were fighting to get back in the game you were chanting and getting the players up for that fight back.

 

Use that energy for good and let's get the guys playing with that smile again

[Radders]

Sorry Ian/dan but I have to take issue with a couple of things you have said. I can appreciate your point about certain comments shouted being over the top by a few people myself very much included. This all comes from passion and desire for the win. When you sit back and think about it on a new day it can seem like poor behaviour but I appreciate horshams comments that for the vast majority of the game we were as a group cheering our team on.

 

My main gripe is that you saw smiths tackle as a yellow card. If that's a yellow card then tackling should be taken out of the game of football completely. It was as I said earlier a hard but fair challenge and certainly a lot cleaner than a large number of unpunished tackles.

 

From where I was stood albeit it a distance away (roughly the same as Neil's btw) it looked very much like the 9 knew exactly what he was doing with foulser especially as he knew we'd used all 3 subs and he was our only recognised centre back left. I appreciate opinions will always differ but that's my thoughts!!!

[HorshamRebel]

Radders, at the time it happened I couldn't believe Ed got a yellow, as I was sure he got the ball, but then I checked my photos a few seconds afterwards. I then saw why the yellow came out

Take a look at photo 144.

[Don Juan DeMarcus]

Ed smiths was never a yellow especially considering how o toole and their number 9 had got away with a number of fouls throughout.

 

I'm sorry but the ref was an utter joke (and I won't be dissuaded here) he constantly gave obvious decisions the wrong way and even had to fake an offside call after deciding the ball had gone out while it was still 2 yards in play. If I had had that level of ref at a reserve or Sunday league game I would have gone mental.

 

Nonetheless as said before I don't think he contributed to the result and egham played very well and deserved the win.

[Don Juan DeMarcus]

Radders, at the time it happened I couldn't believe Ed got a yellow, as I was sure he got the ball, but then I checked my photos a few seconds afterwards. I then saw why the yellow came out

Take a look at photo 144.

 

I won't even edit my comment above. Will just prove how different things can look. Can see the follow through... Looks like contact... Can understand the yellow...

[Curtis]

Take a look at photo 144.

Take a look at photos 61 and 62, even in a thumbnail photo you can count the studs on the players boot at head height...... that was in the first half and not even a yellow! It wasn't even a desperate last ditch challenge by a defender, it was a challenge by one of their strikers on one of our defenders around the halfway line.

 

And some people on here wonder why some fans were disappointed with the standard of refereeing and calling for the ref to show a few more cards???

[Martin]

I said at the time Ed's challenge was risky as he is diving in with force and you give the ref the option. But the photo cannot be conclusive. It is a split second too late. Does he make contact with the ball? Either way I can understand the caution.

 

But the ref saw the challenge on Adam as a foul and gave the 9 a talking too. I maintain should be yellow even if not malicious.

Edited March 5, 2014 by Martin

[Don Juan DeMarcus]

Yeah as our conversation went he gave the ref the possibility of thinking it could be a yellow but diving on hard especially after getting a little tug...