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Joe: Ref Was Wrong
Joe: Ref Was Wrong
Wednesday, 20th Oct 2004 02:11

Town boss Joe Royle was left bemused by referee Tony Leake's decision to disallow Shefki Kuqi's perfectly good goal just prior to Matt Heath netting an own goal equaliser at the Walkers Stadium. Leake appeared the only person in the ground to see a foul on keeper Kevin Pressman when the veteran dropped Dean Bowditch's header at Kuqi's feet.

Royle said: "I think the referee is a good referee but he's got to be embarrassed when he sees it on the video. The goalkeeper's done a bar of soap and no one's been near him. We scored a good goal and had we scored earlier we'd have gone on and won the game.

"The second half, their goal apart, was so one-sided it was untrue and if we'd have got nothing out of that game it would have been really unjust.

"He said someone kicked it out of his hands. He's a good official, certainly one of the better officials, but I think he will be embarrassed when he sees the video.

"We're puzzled, everyone's puzzled. It was only the referee that thought he had kicked it out of his hands. He never had hold of it. It was so obvious from where we were, and we were looking through legs.

"The players are adamant no one was near him. You don't often see our players animated around referees. We don't bother referees but they were so annoyed by that decision."

Leicester temporary boss Dave Bassett was left bemoaning a late own goal for the second time in two matches and denied his side is suffering from a Walkers Stadium hoodoo: "Both were late in the game but we've just showed late in the game that we've got a little bit apprehensive, a bit scared and at the same time our legs went a bit wonky.

"I'm not superstitious. I'm not into all this nonsense because if you start building up things, you end up in the nuthouse. I don't need crutches like that to make excuses.

"We had the game won. We've got two points instead of six but I've seen enough there to know we can improve."

Bassett was unimpressed at the way his side started the game: "We had a disastrous first 10 minutes. We were like a rabbit in the headlights but after that we had a magnificent 35 minutes.

"We've had a week together and there's no doubt we can improve on certain aspects of our play."


Photo: Action Images



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