The weirdest refereeing performance at a City game?

[Scaring Europe to Death]

A few weeks ago I was in Germany and spotted a local with “Mpenza” on the back of his Hamburg shirt.
We got talking about Mpenza, and in particular, the 2004-05 betting scandal which erupted after his outrageous red card for contesting an appalling penalty decision, when Hamburg were surprisingly defeated by Paderborn in the German FA Cup.

Apparently, the decision was a catalyst for four German referees to report their suspicions about one of their colleagues, Robert Hoyzer, who was subsequently imprisoned.
The paper trail also led to the arrest of former City player Steffen Karl, who just like Mpenza will be remembered for a goal that pulled us away from the relegation zone.

Now not for one minute am I suggesting that an English referee would ever take a bribe, but it got me thinking about certain moments in strange games that didn’t quite seem right at the time.

How about our defeat at Doncaster in the League Cup?

City cruising until a debatable last minute penalty for handball, the referee ignoring a similar offence in the Doncaster area straight from the kick off, and then Onuoha contriving to hit the post, yet somehow receive a red card in the same move (conveniently later rescinded)

 

[mayo31]

With the money involved in the Premier league I am surprised it has not happened or at least been rumoured to have.

 

[HelloCity]

Stuart Attwell

City 3-1 Wolves

Without doubt the most corrupt performance I've ever seen. The only decision he got right all game was the Kompany sending off.

Just check out the foul stats, they 're absolutely shocking. Keep in mind this was the champions elect vs the first team to get relegated.

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Fouls

City 17(!)
Wolves 5(!)

Crazy.

 

[JamesMCFC]

Was it Walton who used to ref us whenever we played Everton?

He was a corrupt bastard

 

[Hamann Pineapple]

Was it Walton who used to ref us whenever we played Everton?

He was a corrupt bastard

Yep, sent him to Alcatraz

 

[blue b4 the moon]

Although we all moan I suspect most refs are poor, easily lent on and bottlers rather than cheats apart from that Walton guy.

He maked the Polls, Clattenbergs, Riley's, Winters and Foys of recent times look like world class refs but only when we played any Merseyside club.

He even requested his last game be an Everton home game.

 

[BlueTG]

Walton against Liverpool in 2010? at home, it was a 0-0 was a fucking bent performance as I can remember in the last couple of years.

Nothing weird about it though because he had a burning desire to don one of their teams shirts every time we played the cunts from the left of us.

 

[Pubteam Lomas]

George Courtney when we played Liverpool. Think he gave them two pens and Tony Coton won the ball on each occasion.
Seriously thought TC was gonna hit Courtney when he gave the second pen.
Even Peter Beardsley seem to apologise after he got the second one.

 

[franksinatra]

Liverpool home defeat 1989/90 season. 3-0 home defeat (nothing surprising there) but aided and abetted by George Courteney.

A sending off for a professional foul had just been introduced and in the early parts of the game Garry Abblett brought down Clive Allen. A clear red but waved away by Courteney.

This was then followed by two penalties to Liverpool. Apparently he later left the stadium hid in the boot of a car??

 

[stony]

Walton, the bent **** was quickly and quietly fucked off to another country.

 

[jimharri]

Alf fucking Grey. ****.

 

[whitenoise]

<rant>Any game involving us and scousers refereed by Walton. Plus Chris Foy at Norwich away, we won 6-1 and he was an absolute disgrace until we were 3-1 up and he seemed to shrug his shoulders and accept even he couldn’t cheat us out of a win.
Fat Phil giving a pen at Anfield when the ball was wellied at Micah from 2 yards away in the league cup, that cheating xxxxard Wiley disallowing Tiatto’s goal at ‘Boro away (off side apparently, although he’d run with the ball from the edge of his own penalty area to score) and the one that sticks in the memory like no other – a penalty against Fonzcheck (of Homer Simpson fame) in the cup at the swamp. It was such a weird decision, Kean (of dog pleasuring fame) thought the whistle had blown for a foul by him.
</rant>

 

[Lucky Toma]

Stuart Attwell

City 3-1 Wolves

Without doubt the most corrupt performance I've ever seen. The only decision he got right all game was the Kompany sending off.

Just check out the foul stats, they 're absolutely shocking. Keep in mind this was the champions elect vs the first team to get relegated.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/15413453" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/15413453</a>

Fouls

City 17(!)
Wolves 5(!)

Crazy.

This was the first one I thought of too. A highly dubious 'performance'

 

[LoveCity]

Stuart Attwell

City 3-1 Wolves

Without doubt the most corrupt performance I've ever seen. The only decision he got right all game was the Kompany sending off.

Just check out the foul stats, they 're absolutely shocking. Keep in mind this was the champions elect vs the first team to get relegated.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/15413453" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/15413453</a>

Fouls

City 17(!)
Wolves 5(!)

Crazy.

This one always stands out for me too. Despite our superiority, fans were raging at Atwell's blatantly biased performance.

Just a few months later, Atwell was demoted to the Football League. I wonder if City made a formal complaint.

He recently got promoted back to PL games, straight after officiating City vs. Newcastle in the cup. Just wait until our next league game with him, expect lots of cards.

 

[lancs blue]

Courtney and Grey against the red dippers in the 80s as already mentioned. In the FA Cup QF there was no way Courtney could be certain that Coton hadn't got a touch on the ball as both "pens" arose from fast attacks and Courtney wasn't close enough to tell - I'm not sure he was corrupt as such, he just guessed and favoured the "bigger" club (we were 2nd tier at the time).

Grey on the other hand was as bent as a £3 coin in that first leg of the League Cup SF. Kevin Reeves header was disallowed for some phantom pushing that no-one else could see - even the journos seemed baffled by it in the papers next morning - and then he topped it off by giving a free kick to them for nothing from which they scored.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

The one (among many) that stands out for me was Graham Poll v Arsenal in 2005/6 when they beat us 3-1 in the penultimate game of the season. They were in 5th place, 4 points behind Spurs with a game in hand, which was the game at out place. If they'd lost then Spurs would have had 4th place so they really needed 3 points and Spurs to drop points in their last game to get into the CL places.

We played really well for 75 minutes but Poll gave such a one-sided performance that night. Blowing up for anything we did wgphen we were attacking and failed to play advantage three times when we had breaks on. Eventually Reyes came on and won it for them but if he hadn't done his best to disrupt our attacks at every possible opportunity then we could possibly have got something from the game. Of course, Spurs could still have got 4th if they'd won at West Ham on the final day but they all came down with that mysterious stomach bug the day before and lost. That finally convinced me that the PL was bent.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Les Tirebuck. Never seemed to get a bloody thing from him.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

Can anyone think of games where the ref has favoured us?

The only one that springs to mind is the Fulham game in the third division when Michael Brown got away with a couple of reckless challenges early doors and only got a lecture, when most of us were fearing a straight red.

Oh and Ben Thatcher.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Peter Walton and George Courtney were the worst repeat offenders. I seem to recall Pat Partridge irking a few blues back in the 70's too.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Can anyone think of games where the ref has favoured us?

The only one that springs to mind is the Fulham game in the third division when Michael Brown got away with a couple of reckless challenges early doors and only got a lecture, when most of us were fearing a straight red.

Oh and Ben Thatcher.

I think we have a winner with Jonny Moss. The Villa game a season or two back drew a couple of pens, one of which came within at least six inches of the defender's arm. And I always thought Mike Dean did the extra mile until CFC stomped up this season!!