Forest Let Down By Another Lousy Ref

Nottingham Forest did more than enough today to win this game by a convincing margin. But, not for the first time this season, we were let down by another diabolical referee.

It’s the first season in the Football League for referee, Mr. Karl Evans from Manchester and hopefully his last. His pettiness and ineptitude ruined what was at times a decent game of football. Three Forest players ended up with cautions, one of them (Matt Thornhill) was even sent off. Not one of them warranted a card!

Forest started the game with purpose and looked determined to end a three game run without a win. For 35 minutes they ran the show and could have been three up at the break. Charlton ended the half having created only one real chance, whereas the Reds’ had a hatful, with Earnshaw (twice), Perch and Tyson going close.

The half time chatter, was whether we had wasted our best chances of winning the game in the first 45 mins. It seemed as though that might be the case, as the Addicks came at us and for the first 20 mins of the half took control of the game. Forest had lost the impetus they had and instead of passing it around well and with purpose, gave it away cheaply and were second best. Thankfully they got a grip and seemed to get a second wind. The flowing football from the first half looked to be returning, but Karl Evans was doing his best to make sure the game didn’t flow.

Matt Thornhill, who came on as a second half replacement for Luke Chambers was harshly sent off, for a second (supposedly) bookable offence. Both the crowd and the players were incensed. Cries of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ rang out and they weren’t wrong. Just prior to getting his marching orders, Thornhill sent over a delightful ball into the box, that had three Forest players scrambling to reach it, only for each of them to miss out.

As the game was drawing to a close and with Forest down to ten men, the game became very open and chances fell to both sides. The best chance for either side came in the dieing moments. First it was Charlton who missed out, as former Forest striker Andy Gray forced a finger tip save from Smith. His header looked to be going in the back of the net. Keeper Paul Smith though, got enough on the ball at full stretch to nudge the ball onto the post and out for a corner.

McLeary looked to have sent Tyson free with a lovely through ball. But the striker let loose with a tame effort that was easilly saved by Nicky Weaver.

All in all, it was a disappointing afternoon for the Reds’. A much better performance all round, was more than spoilt by an overzealous referee. He fell for every trick in the book from an experienced and canny Charlton side and will hopefully be suitably castigated by both managers in their post match reports.