Open Letter To Mark Clattenburg

[Hazy2]

And Reyes was treated like shit by the media. The chuckle brothers tag teamed with the ref acting like the dad reffing his kids, horse head in front of the liner has to be the easiest red in history, but he stays on, pass take. But refs are refs and only human.

[dazby]

Dazby, what are you inferring in your last post?

That every team you listed is being treated the same by officials over the last few years? Is that what you are suggesting, because I'm fucking intrigued to know??

I'm saying that the week before interviewing him I asked friends who supported those clubs what I should ask him. They all thought that he gave them a rough ride. Some brought up examples of games where Clattenberg made a big decision that went against them..

If you knew what you could and couldn't ask him, why did you ask what questions people wanted to ask him? I'm just curious on this. You must have known with his reputation the kind of answers you were going to get. Rightly or wrongly, it came across as a possibility to ask him some serious stuff and from what you have said afterwards it was never going to be anything of the kind.

Mate, I gave it consideration, but how would/could I have framed a question like that and got some sort of reasonable answer? I thought about it and couldn't come up with anything. As mentioned, I asked fans of other teams and they thought he was against them too so I wrote it off as paranoia. Unless I could show him a video of him on the take then there really wasn't anywhere I could go with it.

The way I did bring up the topic was where I mentioned that fans of all clubs thought that he was against them. I was going to work it from there but he mentioned about his electrician background. He said that as an electrician he was always able to check his work and make sure he did the right thing. You're unable to do that as a ref. There's no checking. You make your call and you get on with it.

I used to be an indoor cricket umpire back when I was a student. A good one too and officiated some high profile matches. But I still made mistakes. Plenty of them. People came up to me afterwards and called me a cheat. etc. I wasn't a cheat. I did my best. Sometimes I just got it wrong. Just like refs do.

What he said resonated with me. You can't check. You can't change your mind, and if you do you have to be exceptionally, unbelievably good at explaining why. It made sense and there was no point taking it further.

[Foreverinbluedreams]

Dazby, what are you inferring in your last post?

That every team you listed is being treated the same by officials over the last few years? Is that what you are suggesting, because I'm fucking intrigued to know??

I'm saying that the week before interviewing him I asked friends who supported those clubs what I should ask him. They all thought that he gave them a rough ride. Some brought up examples of games where Clattenberg made a big decision that went against them..

If you knew what you could and couldn't ask him, why did you ask what questions people wanted to ask him? I'm just curious on this. You must have known with his reputation the kind of answers you were going to get. Rightly or wrongly, it came across as a possibility to ask him some serious stuff and from what you have said afterwards it was never going to be anything of the kind.

Mate, I gave it consideration, but how would/could I have framed a question like that and got some sort of reasonable answer? I thought about it and couldn't come up with anything. As mentioned, I asked fans of other teams and they thought he was against them too so I wrote it off as paranoia. Unless I could show him a video of him on the take then there really wasn't anywhere I could go with it.

The way I did bring up the topic was where I mentioned that fans of all clubs thought that he was against them. I was going to work it from there but he mentioned about his electrician background. He said that as an electrician he was always able to check his work and make sure he did the right thing. You're unable to do that as a ref. There's no checking. You make your call and you get on with it.

I used to be an indoor cricket umpire back when I was a student. A good one too and officiated some high profile matches. But I still made mistakes. Plenty of them. People came up to me afterwards and called me a cheat. etc. I wasn't a cheat. I did my best. Sometimes I just got it wrong. Just like refs do.

What he said resonated with me. You can't check. You can't change your mind, and if you do you have to be exceptionally, unbelievably good at explaining why. It made sense and there was no point taking it further.

Of course he can check, there's nothing he can do about it after the fact but he can still check to assess his own performance to see where he can improve in future.

I do understand the position you were in though Dazby, you obviously had to be professional. The way to do it would be to get him drunk after work and ask him then what teams he doesn't like reffing, what players piss him off etc. easier said than done though.

[collins88]

Clattenberg should shape up with his referee job. Why are lots of chaps favoring the celeb status nowadays?

[dave watson's perm]

I see the "allegedly" bent cunt has had to sever ties with the football agency.

[Beefymcfc]

I see the "allegedly" bent cunt has had to sever ties with the football agency.

And rightly so. Just waiting for the same of Gill.