Dire Deadman Defends Blue Belle Bookings

Referee David Deadman refused to apologise last night for his dismal performance during the Southend United v MK Franchise Scum encounter.

An error-filled first half display was overshadowed by referee Deadman. But whilst the Blue Belles showed better co-ordination for their second and final routine - almost keeping in time with the music - the talking point of the night was the referee's card happy display and how he brandished no fewer than five yellow cards to the Blue Belles.

He later dismissed suggestions that he got carried away and complained that he had little option than to book all five: "I had no choice whatsoever for the first booking. Following Sepp Blatter's latest directive on women in football it's not enough for Alan McCormack to play or at least moan like one, we also have to adopt Beach Volleyball rules and her shorts did not show enough flesh.

"The second booking was blatantly off-side, which is a clear yellow card in anyone's book. I might have got a bit carried away with the third booking (unused sub Kyle Asante, who was just there to make up the numbers) for just standing there, but the next one the girl definitely kicked above waist high, even if she didn't touch anyone. The final one I booked was right dirty and I didn't like the look of her tackle."


Deadman's card-happy display means that no new signings are now likely to go through before Tuesday night's trip to Prenton Park, as Deadman had to borrow all the fax paper in order to complete his post-match report.

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Lottery Results: the shirt numbers chosen at random to be booked were 21, 26, 4, 7, 9, 11, 6, 5 and 16. Initial forecasts are that only one team in Essex won.

Refs refuse to apologise

The referees for last Saturday's game against Oldham and Tuesday night's trip to Brentford have controversially refused to follow the precedent set by Mick Russell, of apologising for a diabolical performance.

Earlier this season Russell was man enough to admit that he got three critical decisions wrong in Southend's 2-1 defeat at Swindon when he sent off Jean-Francois Christophe for being hacked, missed two blatant fouls in the build up to Swindon's first goal and then turned down a penalty for a clear foul of Franck Moussa.

However referee Keith Hill lived up to his reputation with an overly fussy performance in which football was only occasionally allowed to punctuate the constant flow of the referee's whistle. He then capped off a typically inept display with a controversial penalty. On-lookers suggested that Hill, who suffers from the disability of being crap, may have been blinded by Oldham's radioactive kit.

Oldham manager Dave Penney defended Oldham's kit saying that he designed it himself and you try coming up with a better one (including a goalkeepers' shirt) in 5 minutes using just highlighter pens.

Keith Hill's guide-dog was unavailable for comment.

God knows what the excuse for Tuesday night's ref was though.