John Coleman, the Accrington Stanley manager, has again made his feelings known to the local Accrington press about last Saturday's Conference game at Hereford.
The Full Article:
JOHN Coleman has urged match officials to play fair' after admitting he felt robbed of three points at Hereford.
The Accrington Stanley manager was incensed that his side failed to be awarded a free kick for almost the last half-hour of Saturday's match.
And Danny Ventre's red card, at a time when Stanley were leading their promotions rivals 2-0, added further controversy to a bad-tempered finale at Edgar Street.
It was a sequence of events which led to the Reds failing to equal a Conference record of 11 consecutive wins held by Hereford and Dagenham and Redbridge as the Bulls grabbed an injury time equaliser.
"All we want is for officials to be fair and we didn't get a fair ride on Saturday, I don't care what anyone says," Coleman fumed.
"There were things going on there that were fouls for them and weren't for us.
"If that gets me into trouble, it shouldn't, because anyone's only got to look at the last time we got a foul. If you watch that video again, play it and keep rewinding it back from the final whistle to the last time he (the referee) gave us a free kick."
Statistics proved that the last foul given against Hereford was timed at 69 minutes, when Andy Ferrell impeded winger Gary Roberts. And with six minutes of stoppage time added on at the end, that meant the Reds went without a free kick for 27 minutes in total.
Ventre's dismissal for handball inside the penalty area was also debatable as the 20-year-old full back did not move his arm to make the block from Nicky Nicolau's close range shot.
"If it's a deliberate handball, he has to move his hand towards the ball," Coleman said.
"It's debatable whether the ball has hit his hand or not. He's standing upright and our goalkeeper's standing behind him.
"Now he's standing upright so if that's a deliberate handball, there are a lot of handballs that went unpunished.
"I don't know what his (the referee's) gripe was with us and I can't believe how someone, who had a particularly good first half, could go that way in the second half.
"You can say we're upset about the sending off, which I am.
"But what I'm more upset about is the amount of fouls that were given for them that weren't given for us.
"That's what my big, big bug-bear is.
"We dominated for 75 minutes and then somebody else has brought them into the game.
"We had our winning run taken off us, and not by Hereford, and you can draw your own conclusions by who has (taken it)."
Text at top (next game etc)
Next Game: Home Against Kidderminster In The League On Boxing Day 26th December At 1.00pm