A dark and chilly evening, March 1974. Goldstone, West Stand, tickets courtesy of the player who was renting the spare room in my parents’ house at the time.
My ears covered by my mum’s hands as the North Stand poured serious doubt on the legal parentage of the referee, and likening him for some reason to a ship’s anchor… at least as far as I could tell.
That game against Port Vale was my introduction to the troubled relationship between the football fan and the match official we all love to hate.
In comparison, the questioning of the referee in Brighton 2-2 Liverpool by the modern-day North Stand at the Amex was restricted to a more child-friendly questioning of his fitness to officiate a match, after he denied the Albion what looked to many to be a certain handball and penalty.
Liverpool fans of course, along with many neutrals watching, wondered how Pascal Gross escaped a yellow or even red card for the shirt pulling which gave the Redmen their first half penalty.
It was probably a relief to everyone that VAR was not pivotal to the outcome as it had been in the Liverpool against Spurs clash the week previously, leading to the dentally-spectacular Jurgen Klopp to demand a replay.
Thank you to whoever started up the “We want a replay” chant from the North after the Virgil van Dijk handball incident, an absolute LOL moment.
Ahead of the game, many feared Brighton were going to be unduly punished because the Stockley Park screen watchers would not have dared to make any rulings hostile to Liverpool given their midweek protestations and thinly veiled threats of legal action.
Quite rightly, Albion fans pointed to three occasions last season where the PGMOL had to apologise to Brighton for refereeing errors not picked up by VAR.
At Spurs in April, a challenge from Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg on Kaoru Mitoma should have led to a spot kick. Three points should have been in the bag at Selhurst Park in February were it not for VAR drawing their offside lines from the wrong Crystal Palace defender to incorrectly rule out a Pervis Estupinan goal.
And – irony of ironies – Liverpool midfielder Fabinho somehow ducked a red card for a terrible foul on Evan Ferguson when Brighton eliminated the Redmen from the FA Cup
A case could be made that refereeing mistakes meant the Albion missed out on the Champions League, or more credibly a fifth placed finish above Liverpool and the extra Premier League prize money that came with it. Real financial consequences for proven and admitted refereeing mistakes.
To err is human; to be able to make a judgement from watching the highlights on your phone without any of the time pressures of a live sporting event in front of millions is divine.
Referees made errors before VAR, and were mercilessly undone by instant replays on The Big Match or Match of the Day. I can remember the sombre judgements of Jimmy Hill quite vividly.
VAR and goal line technology has in many cases immediately righted some wrongs. Brighton have benefited most recently with two penalties against AEK Athens without which we would have been far more convincingly beaten in our opening Europa League game.
But interpretation of the rules and events even with the benefits of slow-motion replays and multiple camera angles is still open to human error.
FIFA, UEFA, the Premier League and the PGMOL can and should improve decision making and transparency, and everyone will have a view as to how.
In the heat of the game though, with immense pressure not to hold proceesings up for ever longer periods, they are forced to make a call.
Inevitably, some will be wrong. At least in the view of one set of fans or even the manager who have come out on the wrong end of the decision.
We saw that with those Liverpool fans who felt Van Dijk did not deserve to concede a penalty and those Brighton supporters who believed it was the correct decision for Gross to not even be booked.
Should that mean games are replayed, results altered and points awarded retrospectively? That could be a slippery slope leaving people open to all sorts of undue influence. Only in a case of clear, deliberate and proven match-fixing would it be justified, but others will have a different view.
What is a deliberate handball, an arm in a natural or unnatural position, an unavoidable strike or deliberate block with the forearm or hand? That is a judgement, not a measurable line on a screen. Offside is at least a little more cut and dry.
In 10 or 20 years time, when we are watching games in climate controlled stadia, the Albion are collecting their third or fourth Champions League trophy and much of the officiating is done by AI, we will probably still be questioning the parentage, onanistic tendencies or programming of the referee.
It is and always has been a part of the game, from Brighton 2-1 Port Vale in 1974 to Brighton 2-2 Liverpool in 2023. Infuriating but human – as it should be.
