Referees and their assistants are constantly expected to expect the unexpected - if you catch my drift. Those rare and obscure moments like a crossbar snapping in two or the wind picking the ball up and carrying it back into the goalkeeper's goal - well they're our bread and butter, the raison d'etre of us sad, geeky refs who love to know and uphold the laws of the game.
Now offside is usually given when an attacker ventures goalside of the last defender with only the keeper between him and the goal. But Law 11 doesn't say anything about one of the defenders having to be a goalkeeper. The law simply states that there must be two opposing players goalside of the attacker when the ball is kicked.
Today, when Reading 'keeper Marcus Hahnemann dropped the ball about six yards off his line, the ball was nudged forward by a Portsmouth player. It found its way to Sol Campbell, who headed the ball home. But there was only one Reading player between him and the goalline when the ball was played to him. The goalkeeper was stranded out of position and the assistant really should have spotted that there was only one defender there and waved his flag.
Reading were having a bad enough day as it was and they suffered a bad decision in the goal fest against Spurs at the weekend (see below) that changed the match. That said, it's wonderful and refreshing to hear Steve Coppell refusing to rise to the bait and instead concentrating on his team's overall performance.
Oddly, the Reading players also showed their ignorance of the laws as well. None of them protested at Campbell's goal.
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