Disappointed…

…you’ve got to be when you are 2 up at half time and manage to lose 3-2.

I thought we were excellent in the first half.  Two great goals rounding off our best half of football so far this season.  But we couldn’t hold on and though we didn’t deserve to lose we conceded the winner 5 minutes from time.

There were some key moments in the 2nd half,  Ashey going off injured at the start of the second half as well as James Gray and Ben also having to go off during the half and Gary Burrell hitting the bar direct from a free kick which would have been 3-0 – and game over.

Normally I won’t use this column to criticise referees, but I will today.  We had one of the younger refs and I thought he did a good job in the first half, talking to the players, telling them why he was giving decisions but second half he lost it.  A number of incidents were called wrong, Marvin McCoy’s booked while James Gray and Stephen Hughes both committed fouls that were worse but not punished (consistency?), Marvin fouled before the equaliser, and then the incident at the end of the match.

Nothing much to say about the red cards except both players should ask themselves how they allowed that to happen, but I couldn’t believe it when their player threw something into the crowd in front of the ref and he didn’t take any action.  The ref said after the game that their player lobbed back a stone that had been thrown at him, causing a cut leg.  I didn’t see anything thrown at him, but whether it was or not for the ref to miss an overarm hurl – not a lob – right in front of him was a shocker.  Players know they shouldn’t react to the crowd but the Billericay player not only got away with it but was able to run to our fans at the end of the game to celebrate.

It was a shame for the game to finish that way.  They have a nice set up at Billericay.  Derek Collier who used to work with us when we were sponsored by Warwick Wright is an official there and their chairman Steve Kent has even started a blog.  But it’s good luck to them and we have to pull ourselves together for Monday and get a win on the board.