Refwatch Preview - Chester (h)
Dale are at home to Chester City this weekend, and Walsall based referee Steve Bratt has been the man put in charge of officiating this game.
I’m sure Refwatch is cursed. Since I volunteered to resurrect it this season, it’s been nothing but trouble.
In the last week we have seen:
1. Referee Steve Cook appointed to our game at Posh and then not be there on the day, allegedly because he hasn’t passed his fitness test.
2. Graham Salisbury appointed to the Stoke match and then changed 24 hours later to Mark Haywood.
This brings us nicely to Saturday’s official Steve Bratt.
He was appointed to our home game with Hartlepool in April, before they sulked to the Football League that he came from Walsall, whom Pool were challenging with for the title. The FL backed down, Bratt was replaced and Dale won 2-0. Oh, the replacement referee also have us two penalties, sent off two Hartlepool players and then reported them to the FA.
(He also reported us too but that’s by the by!)
So we rate the chances of Mr Bratt appearing on Saturday as 50:50, especially if Chester find some tenuous link somewhere to have him changed. He did make it to Spotland last October for the JPT game against Crewe, while a month earlier he had refereed our league win at Wrexham.
According to Soccerbase, Mr Bratt’s last Chester game came at Clevedon in the first round of last season’s FA Cup. Chester eased to a 4-1 win that afternoon. Last Saturday Mr Bratt was in the middle for the League One fixture between Crewe and Brighton. His performance didn’t go down too well with the visitors, as this extract from their local paper suggests:
‘They surely spelt his name wrong in the programme. Albion will certainly not forget Steve Bratt in a hurry. The hapless West Midlands referee condemned them to a cruel opening defeat with two controversial penalty decisions. I get bored by managers and players endlessly bleating about referees costing them matches, rather than examining their own shortcomings. On this occasion, however, the Seagulls have every justification to feel hard done by. Bratt by name, you know what by nature.’
Let’s hope we aren’t saying similar things on Saturday!
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