‘REF HAD IT IN FOR ME’, SAYS MCKIMM

ANGRY Tonbridge Angels boss Steve McKimm says the referee who sent him off last Saturday “had it in for him”.

McKimm was dismissed from the touchline following a 20-man melee at the end of Angels’ 1-0 defeat by struggling Burgess Hill.

He was trying to break up trouble by holding back the Hillians’ physio.

But McKimm believes the incident was used as a smokescreen, insisting the referee was looking for an excuse to give him his marching orders.

“He had it in for me from the 17th minute of the game,” he said. “At the start of the second half he came over and said if I came out of the dugout into the technical area, he’d send me off. When I tried to explain things to him, he didn’t want to hear it.

“If I’d done something wrong, why not send me off there and then instead of telling me I had to stay in the dugout? That was my point after the game.

“I find it amazing how at the end there, when there’s 18 or 20 people involved, with all the pushing and shoving, that the linesman picks me out when all I’m doing is holding the physio who would have flown in.

“We were the only two who got picked out and he couldn’t be sent off because he does the bag.”

Burgess Hill’s victory, courtesy of Aaron SmithJoseph’s eighth-minute effort, took them off the bottom of the Bostik Premier ahead of the weekend.