Brave red card puts top refs to shame
AMID the climax to the Premier League season, the bravest performance of the weekend largely passed unnoticed. Refereeing the National League play-off final, Neil Hair sent off Liam Ridehalgh of Tranmere after 54 seconds. There may only have been 16,306 inside Wembley but given that this is the biggest match in the league in which Hair referees — he is only a linesman in the Football League — that took guts. Ridehalgh flew into a tackle on Boreham Wood’s Ricky Shakes that could have caused serious injury — late, high, a red card all day. But how many of our officials, even the best ones, would have been brave enough to show it, less than a minute into such a game? Hair’s heart must have been pounding, but he did the right thing. There were no complaints — not even from Tranmere manager Micky Mellon. Remember Howard Webb, ducking out of sending off Nigel de Jong for a horrendous high kick into the chest of Xabi Alonso in the first half of the 2010 World Cup final? Hair showed what should have happened. It doesn’t matter what the time is. A foul is a foul.