Steve HILL
HILLY’S AWAY DAYS
A Liverpool fan recently asked me what team I support. Truthfully replying “Chester” I was greeted by that familiar look of disbelief, pity and disgust, with no further questions proffered, as if he had perhaps misheard.
It seems unfathomable to many that anyone could support a club from outside the Premier League, or even the top six. As for Non-League, they presumably regard it as a footballing wilderness that only rears its ugly head when the FA Cup third round comes around and the surviving teams get a patronising pat on the head, be they comprised of butchers, bakers or candlestick makers.
By the time you read this, I will hopefully have witnessed the mighty Chester swat aside the plucky pit ponies of Pontefract Collieries as we set our sights on Wembley, or at least the third qualifying round. Whatever happened at the Deva Stadium, unlike our Premier League counterparts I will have been spared the scramble for exorbitant tickets and the chance to pay as much as seven pounds a pint.
I will have been able to freely wander around the terrace, shovel a reasonably priced pie into my face, and hopefully celebrate in the bar afterwards with my close personal friend, the manager.
All good reasons to attend, but let’s face it, the real reason people go to the match is for the limbs. A modern term to describe an ancient activity, there is little on earth that compares with the feral reaction to a crucial goal. Lost in a sea of body parts, hugging strangers and bellowing nonwords into the ether: mass hysteria, but in a good way.
Chaos
But hold on, the referee is checking his earpiece; a pencil-neck in a car park has spotted a potential aberration. Rewind your joy while the ref consults his screen. Unhand that stranger, retract your bellow, and wait patiently for permission to roar, prophylactic pedantry notwithstanding.
The introduction of VAR – over four years ago now – is arguably the most controversial development in the modern game, somewhat ironically as it was presumably intended to quash controversy. If I was mildly in favour at the time, it was due to decades of listening to pundits pontificate on what was and wasn’t a foul.
With the introduction of a definitive answer, I naively assumed they would go and do something less boring instead. Now of course they analyse the foul plus VAR’s interpretation of the foul and the referee’s subsequent reaction, additional circles of hell spiralling from a non-event.
Football is chaos, multiple moving parts simultaneously clattering into each other. Numerous arbitrary factors affect the outcome of a match: the fixture, the venue, the weather, the fans, injuries, suspensions, team selection, skill, and a massive swathe of luck.
The ball bounces. To err is human, which applies to both players and officials. To single out refereeing in search of a mythical objective truth seems futile, particularly when it neuters the main reason everyone watches the game. Football has shot itself in the foot, which will of course be checked.
Appeal process
Barring an unlikely volte face, VAR is of course here to stay. As such, it risks relegating football to the status of ambient sport. Actually sticking the ball in the net could become the first part of the appeal process.
In its search to quantify everything, football has lost something. And it’s not as if they even get it right all the time.
In a recent Europa League game, a penalty was awarded against Manchester United after the ball bounced from leg to arm. VAR checked it and the decision stood, an Error In Law occurring in plain sight. If we get to the point where we’re talking about VAR decisions levelling themselves out over the course of a season we may as well all go home.
Or just watch proper football. The next time a Premier League fan tells me who they support, I’ll give them an understanding look. Non-League might have worse players, crumbling stadiums, low crowds, and a largely perilous existence. But what ain’t we got? We ain’t got VAR.
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