March 20th – Southend 2 Andy Woolmer 2 – Position: 22nd

It’s almost traditional that teams fighting for their lives towards the end of March witness a complete absence of luck. The wood work is hit an unimaginable number of times, key players develop brittle bone disease and a flock of questionable officials descend onto games like vultures. It won’t surprise you to hear that, at Southend, we’ve had it all.

Subtracting the enormous off-the-field woes we’ve had to surpass and the fragile, precarious state of the club financially, Southend haven’t had the best of seasons.

Fresh from a first clean sheet in what seemed like an eternity, a renewed vigour appeared to wash over a back line that welcomed cult figure and peanut-headed Johnny Herd back into the squad. The vigour lasted all of six minutes. Scott Dobie pouncing on a glaring defensive error to head past Mildenhall. Heads sunk even further, Ben Marshall doubling the advantage a handful of minutes later as an apparent tear in the time space continuum rendered the defence immobile, like a scene straight out of FlashForward, and incapable of dealing with professional footballers who have the gaul to run.

Then, a key moment in the game that ultimately swung the game in our favour and decided the result. A ball broke away from Johnny Herd, leaving Adam Barrett to clear the ball into touch. No contact was made with the man; Barrett’s eyes never left the ball and all involved parties simply got on with the game.

Quite what Mr Woolmer saw in the incident I don’t know. It was a two footed lunge for the ball that was never malicious nor dangerous, purely because there was never a chance of contact. When Barrett received his first yellow card of the day, the incredulous expression cast over his face said it all.

The overall shock of the decision, and incited venom of the crowd, inspired an eleven who were in grave danger of being cast aside in the opening stages. Momentum is everything in football, and when an incident such as this changes the momentum, the ramifications can be extreme. Enter, stage right, Damien Scannell. Fresh and fit, he tore down the right wing, playing a neat one-two with Simon Francis before crossing over to Franck Moussa who dispatched the ball with a neat, if scuffed, finish into the corner.

Minutes later, the impetus was fully in Southend’s court as Barrett steamed into the box to claim a header and an equaliser which raised the crowd to it’s feet. The rest of the first half consisted of continued pressure and, had it continued for a further five minutes, the game could have been won there and then.

My initial impression of Woolmer, officiating in spite of his dwarfism and receding hair line, was that he was a jobs worth official keen on demonstrating his power from the off. In sending Adam Barrett off for a second meaningless yellow card following a scramble in the Carlisle box, he did nothing to rectify my impression.

A lot has been made of the “Dying Art of the Tackle”, and it is easy to see how this is happening with officials like Woolmer rife in the lower leagues. In the event of a goal mouth scramble, a player has every right to challenge a loose ball for the good of his team. By booking Barrett for such a “challenge”, it runs the risk of setting a dangerous precedent in making the game non-contact. If I wanted a non-contact sport, I’d stay at home and watch Netball or take up Chess.

The rest of the game was ruined by awful decision after awful decision, and no word of exaggeration escapes me when I say Woolmer was one of, if not the, worst official I’ve seen at Roots Hall in the past decade. And we’ve seen Trevor Kettle here on multiple occasions.

Barrett’s now the victim of a one-game ban, missing the crucial game against Walsall on Tuesday, and a ridiculous and out-dated law that means we cannot challenge the decision because of it being comprised of two decisions, equally as poor as each other.

Woolmer, even if there was an accessor in the audience, will escape with a mildly-toned letter urging him to review his decision making, but the repercussions for the club could be disastrous. We stood no chance of beating Carlisle with a man down and will now miss our captain for a game that could decide our stature come May.

Woolmer, and Richard Keogh who found it wildly amusing to prance and joke with the aforementioned wanker in the black after Barrett’s dismissal, join Nicky Bailey and Phil Parkinson in “Stop this season’s book of Awful, Awful Bastards”, published in full come May 8^th. As for us, it was an improved performance and the green shoots of recovery are starting to sprout. Continue that style of performance and there’s still hope… the elusive three points continues to avoid us, and they’ll have to show their beautiful face here soon.