ONE RED CARD – TWO BANS!
WORCESTER City have hit out at their local county FA for a refereeing mistake that led to two players having to miss a game over just one red card.
City’s top scorer from last season Luke Reynolds and defender Luke English both had to miss Tuesday’s 1-0 Midland Premier League win at Coventry Sphinx, following one sending off in their FA Cup preliminary round defeat by Walsall Wood a week before.
English was sent off in that game, but match referee Ryan Grandison made a mistake when filing his report and wrongly listed the blameless Reynolds as having been shown the red card.
Penalty
City officials saw the mistake, and told English that he should sit out the Sphinx game because they knew it was he and not Reynolds who should have received an automatic ban.
However, when they tried to get the ban on Reynolds lifted on the previous Friday in time for the Sphinx game, they heard nothing back from the Worcestershire County FA and with 15 minutes to go before kick off, gave up, fearing that to play him would incur a further penalty on the club.
Mr Grandison, meanwhile, had been in touch with the county FA and admitted his error on the day of the Sphinx game.
But no staff were on duty at the county FA to check the emails in a particular inbox and subsequently missed his vital communication.
City boss John Snape said that the county FA had been aware of the problem for four days before the Sphinx match.
“How can that mistake happen?” he said.
A county FA spokesman said: “We have been back to the club to explain the reasons and offer an apology.”
He added that Mr Grandison was not one of the county’s officials.