Town boss Paul Jewell slammed the officials’ failure to award his side a spotkick when Steven Caldwell felled Lee Martin inside the box minutes before Birmingham's last-gasp winner at St Andrew's. Referee Rob Lewis wasn’t well sighted but assistant Amy Fearn was better placed to see what looked a clear foul

Jewell said: “Although the referee didn’t have a very good view, the lineswoman, or whatever she's called, had a great view - it was a stonewall penalty and a sending off. You’ll have to ask her why she didn’t give it. It was a stonewall penalty.

“I asked the referee at the end but there was the wall of silence. But it’s happened, I don’t know why it’s happened because I don’t even think it was a debatable decision, it’s a stonewall penalty.”

Jewell is likely to face scrutiny regarding his criticism of the female official with some newspapers misquoting an early exchange during the post-match press conference.

A reporter asked the Town boss, "I think everyone to a man thought it was a penalty, what's your view?" with the Blues manager responding, "Unfortunately to every man, but not a woman."

Jewell was generally pleased with his team, aside from Nikola Zigic’s two goals: “We defended resolutely, they had a couple of opportunities but we had some good situations on the break that we didn’t make the most of - balls flying across the box.

“The players’ effort was unstinting but the two goals we gave away were bad goals, but in between that there were a lot of good points.”

He felt his team deserved a point and despite the setbacks need to remain resolute and results will then come: “We do need a break but we’ve got to keep going, no one’s going to give us anything for nothing.

“We’ve got to keep going ourselves. We should have had a penalty tonight, we should have got at least a point out of the game.

“It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself, you’ve just got to try and keep going, keep working hard and hope that something does turn your way. If we play like that in the coming games, we’ll win more than we lose.

“We’re in the situation we’re in because we haven’t defended well enough for long enough periods in games. Our concentration is why we’ve conceded a lot of goals late on. Zigic is a handful at 6ft 7, 6ft 8 but it’s just so disappointing that we’re conceding goals like we have tonight.”

Jewell praised his team’s spirit with the 569 travelling fans applauding them at the whistle: “The effort was there, the supporters clapped the players off at the end, it was a terrific following from them again.

“It’s a hard luck story and you don’t want to be doing hard luck stories. We’ve conceded in the 92nd or 93rd minute and it does become psychological sometimes.”

He says Jason Scotland and Grant Leadbitter should be fine despite picking up minor injuries: “Jason’s all right, we’ve got a couple of knocks. Grant got a knock, Jason got a kick when we were on the attack, so he had to come off but I think he’ll be OK.”

Jewell says his mind now moves on to the task of lifting his team for Saturday’s game against Blackpool: “It’s not easy but you have to, we’ve got another game on Saturday. There’s no point in moping about. We’ve got to take the positives out of the game tonight.”

Birmingham boss Chris Hughton, who says he didn’t see the penalty incident, was pleased that his side kept going and grabbed another late goal: “The late, late show again. If you score late in the game it shows we’ve got enough character and resilience in the team to want to protect this very good home record that we’ve got, and grateful and delighted for Nikola for both goals.”

Photo: Action Images

Brazils_Hair added 09:26 - Jan 12 Agree with everything Legend has said. This is the worst time I can remember in being an ITFC supporter. I feel embarrased for PJ. St Ledger is not going to sign because he thinks that come Monday morning PJ will be gone. Its so very sad. I ddint think that I would ever hear myself saying this but perhaps going down is the watershed that we need..............we'll soon see.

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DunstableBlue added 09:27 - Jan 12 Premiertown, good point about never working in management again, prehaps thats why he has nt done the decent thing and resign as Sky proberly dont want him either.
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big_gaz67 added 09:39 - Jan 12 Walberswick - why the crabby comment. I posted on here a year ago stating as long as we are at the beck and cool of Marcus Evans and that we would have been better owing the bank 45 million (the bank would want us to keep as going concern to have any chance of getting the money back), going into administration, taking the ten points relegation and building the club back up from the botton upwards with Curbishley as overall manager and Matt Holland as his sidekick. If Marcus Evans, as his website claims, really cared about the ITFC heritage we would not employ racist thugs, idiots and gamblers. We wouldn't even contemplate not having the best available academy. If the academy costs £ 1m a year to run then it only takes one Connor Wickham every five years to run at 100% profit - and that's a fiscal benefit after the benefit of these youngsters playing football in the right way for the right club first. If Evans really cared about the persona of his investment I suggest that all fans have a look at the front of the Cobbold Stand on Saturday. It looks tired, dilapidated and in need of urgent attention. And, I am afraid; this also goes for the rest of the club too. I suggest that we are simply an expense to reduce Mr Evan's personal tax bill.........

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DunstableBlue added 09:43 - Jan 12 its all very very sad COYB.
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newboy added 09:43 - Jan 12 49% losses over his year in charge and he wants to blame a woman because he could not even draw a game - JUST GO YOU FOOL before you drag the club down with you
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greenkingtone added 09:49 - Jan 12 tractorboy666: Sometimes the referee tells the linesman that everything inside the penalty area is his, and not to flag for penalties because he thinks its not fair to place big decisions on the linesman. I am surprised he was unsighted at the critical moment. He should be fast enough to move into a position where he can see the man in possession. I reserve judgement.

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PauloJulio added 10:09 - Jan 12 Lack of urgency in improving the squad is bothering me. 20th in the league, leaking goals and not scoring enough the other end has been a long term problem yet here we are 12 days into a transfer window and all we've signed is a goalie...on loan! WTF is going on! It seems PJ is under estimating the trouble we are in. Complacency is leading us to relegation. PJ/SC/ME need to up their game in the transfer market considerably!

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brian_a_mul added 10:11 - Jan 12 Well done to the team on a good performance. Also well done to all the fans that made the trip to St Andrews and for the support they gave the team after the game. With positive support from the fans the team will likely play better. A good performance should be applauded regardless of result as encouragment to the players for their efforts.
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bluestu71 added 10:11 - Jan 12 Have seen the highlights, defo pen. Well done PJ for saying what you think but you must be careful as u will be accused of being sexist.
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are_these_the_days added 10:24 - Jan 12 biggaz67 valid points - as I've said before sometimes a team needs to go down before rediscovering its core values. League 1 did no harm to Norwich & Southampton and I really do question whether Me's intervention was good for the club in the long run. Employing Keane , for example was good for ME publicity-wise but disastrous for ITFC. Ah well at least the newly painted turnstiles look nice - obviously Clegg's priority.

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osborne1nil added 10:35 - Jan 12 Can't believe that there are some 'fans' on here who think that it would be better to be relegated and start again then remain in this league and build from here. This is idiotic, you are looking at Naaarwich and Southampton as examples but think of how long it took Forest to come back up and Leeds for example, we could be there for years. Think carefully before you make such thoughtless comments as it would be a disaster for ITFC. With the correct Manager and players who want to play for ITFC and give there all every game for 90+ minutes we would not be in this situation! A change is required now to save our Championship status before it is too late.

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alfromcol added 11:11 - Jan 12 Legend IF IF IF If we hadn't conceded late goals in 4/5 games we would be close to the play-offs!!!
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brightonbluegirl added 12:04 - Jan 12 As Lesta_Tractor said, whether the decision was right or wrong the fact that the assistant was female is irrelevant. It's sad that if a bad decision is made, there are still some people who find it acceptable to blame it on the person's gender. The bottom line is, we've had a bad defence for years and we concede injury-time goals for fun. Bad decisions come & go and are out of our control, but if we could sort out the things that are in our control, we wouldn't be in the position for a bad decision to cost us the game.

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walberswick added 13:05 - Jan 12 What is a stonewall penalty?
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Tiggs added 13:19 - Jan 12 How can people still back a manager with a 50% loss ratio? I am amazed...... Oh, and Roy Keane's was 34.5% and he got the bullet.
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walberswick added 15:17 - Jan 12 Shouldn't it be "stone-cold","cast-iron" or "nailed-on" penalty?
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TractorTrog added 17:28 - Jan 12 Well done to the team for at least responding to the Manager they did play well at times the throw in though I cant defend it was sloppy ball watching and it wasnt even traveling at speed bad defending yes.... new keeper needs to settle his defence and get them into the right positions for any eventuallity as bizzare as a throw in WE wont be religated but we wont climb either maybe we should see some money and Im not talking 1 or 2 million pound players if we are going to get there we need canny signings yes but we also got to splash the cash Im afraid ME has held on to the wallet and not been adventures enough for me ME could easily have a budget of 30 million available by finnacing he is an exceptionally wealthy owner come on time to be big make this club attactive for big players with talent in there mid 20s and this is all history!!!

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gloucester_tractor added 18:04 - Jan 12 just one note from the game , i was right in line with the penalty shout and the assistant had no view at all and there was no way she could give a penalty decision from her position. Apart from that we did have moments but just did not keep the ball for longenough periods to create pressure.
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