ASKEY SEES RED AFTER ‘PREMATURE’ REF VERDICT

CONFUSION, anger and frustration reigned at the Moss Rose, where Macclesfield boss John Askey called for action against referee Antony Coggins.

The match official had taken what, in truth, appeared a sensible course of action in lousy visibility, suspending play early in the second half.

But his next move, to call an end to proceedings as conditions improved immeasurably, angered everyone in attendance, not least Askey whose own red mist descended with his side 1-0 ahead.

“It’s probably the worst decision there’s ever been in football,” Askey raged while the official stayed in his dressing room under a steward’s guard.

“That’s not an overstatement. Normally you call a game off because you can’t play but the weather is better now than when we started. It’s just a ludicrous decision.

“I hope the referee gets reported and gets suspended. He said we’d go off for 15 minutes and if it got better we’d restart the game but you can clearly see both goals, it’s crystal clear across the pitch, there’s just no reason why you’d call a game off.

“It’s costing the club money, it’s costing the supporters money, because of somebody who, with decisions like that, shouldn’t be refereeing.”

As for the action, Macc captain Andy Halls had made most of the attacking inroads, providing two chances for Chris Holroyd, another one that led to Steven Arnold tipping Danny Whitaker’s header over the bar and a fourth that went begging at pointblank range.

But through the gloom came Macc’s shining light, Danny Rowe, who made the breakthrough on the half-hour mark, charging through the defence and, via a one-two with Holroyd, found the net just inside the post. The visitors had taken until ten minutes before the break to register their first shot on target, though Jim Stevenson barely troubled Craig Ross from 25 yards. But less than ten minutes after the restart came their Get Out Of Jail Free card. And though facing an arduous midweek replay at a later date, their manager Chris Kinnear admitted to a sense of relief. “To be fair we didn’t play well but hindsight is a lovely thing,” he said. “You have to feel for the referee, we couldn’t see what was going on. It might be alright now but he wouldn't know that, would he?”