Phil Dowd Thread (Merged)

[danceoftheshamen]

I was at the game where Gerrard got the freekick in the last couple of minutes against Petrov. Disgrace he should be able to influence a referee like that.

It wasn't just Fletcher & Vidic - Dowd let off ...what about Rafael, after he'd chopped down Ashley Young & then a shortly after elbowed Heskey in the face??!!! He was literally laughing at him, when Dowd said that's 2 now ...no more else you're in the book. Absolute joke after he'd booked Colins for being slightly late on Berbatov, when he'd not put a foot wrong prior to this incident!

Refs performance IMHO DID have a direct bearing on result because after he booked 3 Villa players for next to nothing whilst allowing Man Ure to get away with practically anything....Villa started backing off cos I got the impression they were concerned about 2nd yellows +/or sendings off.

This!

Exactly!

We were by far the better team up until the nonsense with the "yellow,s for us & none for them" thing happened. So i totally agree with the above post as it's correct. The players looked totally baffled & started to make basic errors one of which cost us the equaliser. This was obviously down to the SHOCKING officiating as it would be..

Every time they made any sort of committed challenge they were straight in the book & yet they are also watching Vidic get nothing when he should have been off & several UTD players getting nothing for identical or even worse tackles?!! WOULDN'T YOU BE A TOUCH RATTLED?

[TRO]

It is without doubt, vidic should have benn sent off, but he wasn't...... so its the next 85 minutes i was more concerned with.

[villaajax]

Right here's my contribution to email off to TLR's suggestions:-

Dear Sirs,

After travelling to the Cup Final on Saturday at no little cost to myself, I feel I have to write under the circumstances.

As an Aston Villa supporter I was outraged at the performance of the referee officiating at the game, Mr Phillip Dowd.

If I hadn’t been there and taped the whole game so I had the evidence to replay many times over, I wouldn’t quite have believed what I witnessed

Mr Dowd’s bias towards Manchester United particularly in the 1st half of the game, was there for all to see and was even commented on by BBC pundits at half time and after the final whistle had blown.

After correctly awarding Villa a penalty for a blatant tug of the shirt on Gabriel Agbonlahor, whilst taking his legs from beneath him at the same time, Nemanja Vidic was allowed to remain on the field of play without receiving a Red Card by Mr Dowd. Indeed Vidic wasn’t even shown a Yellow card. This was NOT a correct interpretation of the rules of the game. For a similar incident the previous day a Chelsea player was indeed issued with a red card for all to see live on TV. Yet that tackle was not surely as blatant as this incident involving Vidic. This incident appears to have made the headlines.

However what I was incensed about was this clear bias towards Manchester United players continued by Mr Dowd to my utter astonishment.

A few minutes later following the penalty, James Collins made a late challenge on Berbatov and was immediately shown a Yellow Card, when Vidic hadn’t been even booked for the penalty decision, moments earlier.

Rafael was allowed to hack Ashley Young down, shortly followed by elbowing Emile Heskey in the face! Yet NO Yellow card was shown for either incident. You can clearly see Rafael on TV replays laughing at the referee for getting away with the offences.

Michael Carrick was actually allowed to walk away from another incident where he had fouled a Villa player and Mr Dowd actually went to pull his card out of his pocket, presumably yellow and because the player walked away from the referee even though he was being called back furiously he refused to come back . In fact Mr Dowd started running after Carrick in the beginning. However because the player ran in the opposite direction instead of halting play and booking Carrick and imposing himself as an authority on the pitch, Dowd appeared to give up and end his pursuit of the player to book him. That was a disgrace! Clearly from the replay the referee intended to show the player a yellow card, however he was allowed to remain unpunished simply because he refused to listen to the referee and ran in the opposite direction.

In the interests of football in general and fair play, I would strongly urge the football league to carefully watch the replays of the game and Mr Dowds inconsistent actions in particular.

I have NEVER complained like this about a referee before, even though there have been dreadful mistakes made in previous games. My opinion has always been it’s swings and roundabouts. Some decisions go for your team sometimes, other times it can work against you. However as I said at the beginning of my email, Sunday was different in my eyes. It was the systematic bias towards one set of players over the opposing side and it should be investigated.

Yours very angry,

EDIT ADD: Sorry guys Im sending this... If no one makes a stand after a Cup Final for goodness sake then things will be allowed to slide even further IMHO.

Go for it, I have sent an email, as I mentioned before to the FA Officials Association, though I doubt I'll get a response.

Good luck!

[JulieB]

Indeed sent...just altered/added another paragraph...

"In the interests of football in general and fair play, I would strongly urge the FA, football league, the refereeing authorities to carefully watch the replays of the game and Mr Dowds inconsistent actions in particular. This was a Cup Final for goodness sake! After the game every Villa fan & indeed neutral I spoke to to felt we were somehow robbed.

In my opinion Mr Dowd’s actions DID have a direct bearing on the result of the game and not just because of Vidic being allowed to remain on the field of play, when he should have been sent off. After it became clear that Villa players were going to receive yellow cards for any offence, whilst players from the opposing side weren’t being issued with any, the Villa team appeared to back off from tackling the opposition because obviously they were worried about picking up more cards and possibly being sent off"

[geezer]

Dowd quite simply ...could have cost us the game .....................i aint gonna put on here what i think of him ........otherwise i will get banned

[Hanky]

Of course I am bitter it is a cup final and a major point in the game. It wasn't just one incident either, it was a whole host in the first half.

[PaulMcgrathsknees]

And a p.s. at the bottom:

Carlos Cuellar made perhaps the worst tackle by any Aston Villa player during the match on Patrice Evra and it was a clear yellow card offence. By this time the incompetency of Phil Dowd and corrupt refereeing performance televised across the world gave him no choice but to not book Carlos Cuellar.

The FA should issue a statement of apology and release Phil Dowd from his contract forthwith.

[Jas]

I saw Phil Dowd in town today, he was wearing a Man Utd top.

[TOTTI-THE-GOD]

by the way did anyone else wonder why that piss poor excuse of a central defender for Palace didnt get sent off for his 2 fouls on Carew , i am pretty adamant the first penatly he was the last defender when he brought down Carew , no card given . I know i am bein slightly off topic here but in theory thats 2 games in a row where an opposition defender should of gone for an early bath but got nothing .CONSPIRACY THEORYYYYYYYY

[villa4europe]

for me if MON doesnt get charged for his post match comments then that is the FA admitting the **** up, but thats all we'll get

[Meath_Villan]

Anyone mention dowd is a word removed yet?? just thought I would put it out there .....again

Will he be man enough to come out and explain why no card was shown??

[villaajax]

I saw Phil Dowd in town today, he was wearing a Man Utd top.

I saw him too, I said to him "How do you sleep at night?" and he said "On top of a big pile of money"

[Maradona10]

This has been brushed under the carpet by the media using Shawcross incident as a smokescreen! It was a disgraceful refereeing performance! Also Julie it was Owen who got clattered by Collins! Even if he had a yellow to his name he would have had to have been careful but he allowed Vidic to have a clear game, whereas Collins could not make another challenge at the risk of being sent off!

[Gizmo]

Will he be man enough to come out and explain why no card was shown??

He's not allowed to. Which is something that needs to change.

[briggaman]

The pain from this still isn't going away. I keep replaying the penalty incident in my head like it's a nightmare. So annoyed as the cup was within our grasp.....

I was at Wembley in 2000 aswell when we lost to Chelsea. Whilst that hurt like mad, I was able to accept the fact that we lost (even though later it seemed on replays that James was pushed). That was a poor game and to be honest I was more nervous going into that game than this one against Man Utd. I was so confident for this final.

Anyway, Sunday was totally different as the trophy was there for the taking. I would rather have lost 3-0 to Man Utd under fair circumstances than losing the way we did. There is no doubt in my mind that we would have at least taken the game to extra-time had Vidic gone. Although we probably would have won it in normal time. I should move on but this really is a bitter pill to swallow. Phil Dowd deserves the sack yet he won't get it....

[IOWVillian]

Even the sign posts agree !!!

[JulieB]

I'm with Briggman on this...it's too bitter pill to swallow..I'm still angry about it & I'm not like that normally

...We'd all shelled out loads to go to Wembley to watch our team & Mr Dowd did his utmost to ruin it for us

[justjustin]

I toldmyself I wouldnt post on this subject again but here I am! wasnt the elbow in heskeys face challenge by rafael followed by dowds little chat and a laugh with owen? man that winds me up:

[dogbonus]

dowd was bloody useless. the bias in the first half was unbelieveable.

he's not reffing our game against reading is he?

i'm sure i'll let him know what i think of him next time he's at VP, along with 40000 others

[VillaAndLoyal]

Right here's my contribution to email off to TLR's suggestions:-

Dear Sirs,

After travelling to the Cup Final on Saturday at no little cost to myself, I feel I have to write under the circumstances.

As an Aston Villa supporter I was outraged at the performance of the referee officiating at the game, Mr Phillip Dowd.

If I hadn’t been there and taped the whole game so I had the evidence to replay many times over, I wouldn’t quite have believed what I witnessed

Mr Dowd’s bias towards Manchester United particularly in the 1st half of the game, was there for all to see and was even commented on by BBC pundits at half time and after the final whistle had blown.

After correctly awarding Villa a penalty for a blatant tug of the shirt on Gabriel Agbonlahor, whilst taking his legs from beneath him at the same time, Nemanja Vidic was allowed to remain on the field of play without receiving a Red Card by Mr Dowd. Indeed Vidic wasn’t even shown a Yellow card. This was NOT a correct interpretation of the rules of the game. For a similar incident the previous day a Chelsea player was indeed issued with a red card for all to see live on TV. Yet that tackle was not surely as blatant as this incident involving Vidic. This incident appears to have made the headlines.

However what I was incensed about was this clear bias towards Manchester United players continued by Mr Dowd to my utter astonishment.

A few minutes later following the penalty, James Collins made a late challenge on Berbatov and was immediately shown a Yellow Card, when Vidic hadn’t been even booked for the penalty decision, moments earlier.

Rafael was allowed to hack Ashley Young down, shortly followed by elbowing Emile Heskey in the face! Yet NO Yellow card was shown for either incident. You can clearly see Rafael on TV replays laughing at the referee for getting away with the offences.

Michael Carrick was actually allowed to walk away from another incident where he had fouled a Villa player and Mr Dowd actually went to pull his card out of his pocket, presumably yellow and because the player walked away from the referee even though he was being called back furiously he refused to come back . In fact Mr Dowd started running after Carrick in the beginning. However because the player ran in the opposite direction instead of halting play and booking Carrick and imposing himself as an authority on the pitch, Dowd appeared to give up and end his pursuit of the player to book him. That was a disgrace! Clearly from the replay the referee intended to show the player a yellow card, however he was allowed to remain unpunished simply because he refused to listen to the referee and ran in the opposite direction.

In the interests of football in general and fair play, I would strongly urge the FA, football league, the refereeing authorities to carefully watch the replays of the game and Mr Dowds inconsistent actions in particular. This was a Cup Final for goodness sake!

I have NEVER complained like this about a referee before, even though there have been dreadful mistakes made in previous games. My opinion has always been it’s swings and roundabouts. Some decisions go for your team sometimes, other times it can work against you. However as I said at the beginning of my email, Sunday was different in my eyes. It was the systematic bias towards one set of players over the opposing side and it should be investigated.

Yours very angry,

EDIT ADD: Sorry guys Im sending this... If no one makes a stand after a Cup Final for goodness sake then things will be allowed to slide even further IMHO.

Fair play Julie, good on you!

Watching England play at WEMBLEY now is going to make the feelings of injustice come flooding back to the service.

I can handle losing to a better side, what I can't handle is losing the game on a refereeing performance which was outright unfair and an absolutely disgraceful showing of bias towards another team. It was so blatent that it has even provoked reactions from people such as Friedal, who is never one to speak out unless he feels strongly enough. Christ, even Fergie has admitted the penalty call was 'lucky'.

Ironically, my brother said to me before the final that it was awful that Dowd was refereeing and I took what he said with a pinch of salt at the time because we as football fans are pretty quick to label all referee's as "shit" usually. However it turns out I should have probably taken heed of his warning because that performance has quite simply cost us our first trophy for 14 years, make no mistake about it.

His decisions (and lack of them) changed the course of the game and he should be sacked with immediate effect. How are teams like Villa ever going to progress any further when we not only have to beat a better team, but the **** man in black as well? It's a joke, nothing more, nothing less.