Paul Stratton ©™

@StanCollymore Modern habits like sitting more often, usually in poor positions, which I’m sure footballers do as much as everyone else, are impacting pelvic strength and alignment. Leads to poor motion control over lower limb and knees and ankles take the strain. Pitches don’t help either.

Modern pitches are a disgrace. 1 ft of compact sand with an inch of half grass, half plastic fibres. Add the disgrace that are modern boots and the impacting in joints, bones and tendons is the equivalent of jolting on concrete. Original pitches had soft earth under grass allowing checking, turning and impacts to be absorbed. Player welfare sacrificed at the altar of all season optics.

Today’s game against Hayes & Yeading was abandoned by the referee at half time following an incident between both sets of players in the tunnel. We are in discussion with the league and will update in due course.

@EssexCorinthian You know I still remember that game and a load of people laughing when I stacked it. 😂 Loved my time second-jobbing on a Sunday with you guys. 🫶🏻

@pstratts @EssexReferees @IsthmianLeague Thank you for your service to the game Stratts and, in particular, your contributions to the @EssexCorinthian over the years🤝

Today is my last game as a referee. 8 (mostly) enjoyable years at L3 but time to stop. Thanks to all my colleagues and friends, and most of the clubs. Some fantastic games will live long in the memory. Big shout to @EssexReferees @IsthmianLeague for helping me on the journey. X

@THSTOfficial I don’t think the moral outrage over his comments are warranted. So no, this doesn’t represent my views at all.

Trust statement on the appointment of Roberto De Zerbi: buff.ly/BMelrcN

@refsupportuk I’m retiring after this weekend, a year earlier than planned, but the observer process was the end for me. Complete lottery. I’ve suggested to the FA they should take account of the observer average and the match difficulty and adjust the mark (like they do in other sports).

No problem Dave. I’m really pleased I saw your post. More info would be refs knowing the assessor was never going to give him/her a good mark so they would stay on the game so it wasn’t obvious that he/she was playing the system, but would come off injured before half time as the assessment would not count if the ref came off before half time. The FA would not take notice of my feed back and kept with the same system for years. I had many assessors come to me in confidence to say they know there are assessors out there who just wanted to stay under the radar so would never mark high. It was also almost guaranteed that if an assessor gave a high mark one week, because there were lots of cards and incidents in the game, that his next mark would be low, no matter what went on in the game. I still have this data. I also had an assessor that came to be because the head of refereeing had pulled him up because he had a high average mark and told him he was too generous. I helped him write the reply back to FA as the 4 refs he “ marked high” where in my coaching group and were all in the top 10 of the whole country and his mark was just little lower than their actual average. Those refs all got promoted at the end of the year but the FA never replied to say that in-fact, he wasn’t a “high marker” or “generous”, he had just seen and correctly identified a lot of talented refs. I even had another assessor, who was a notoriously low marker, ask me if I could send him some of my coaching notes and my advice for refs in my group. Two month later a ref who wasn’t in my group sent me an assessment and said “ I have no idea what the assessor is on about and I don’t remember these incidents” When I looked at the assessment it was advice directly cut and pasted from my coaching notes, spelling mistakes included, that I had sent the assessor two months earlier. I complained to the FA but they did nothing and the assessment stood. The ref resigned. I’m pleased to say that the FA improved the system after the head of refereeing, who in my option was the main problem, had left. That assessor is still active. I genuinely believe the FA are doing their best and the system now seems to be working better however, there are too many who, in my opinion are not in it for the rights reasons.

@Kgov81 You didn’t need the first sentence

Looking at how many players #thfc have out, if we dont win on Sunday by at least 4 goals, they all need sacking #lfc

@TheRefereeForum But he didn’t think it was a red card and he didn’t play advantage from a red card foul. From the match report that player wasn’t sent off. Hence why I said “if he’s thinking yellow”. I agree with you, just pointing out the advantage was fair if it was deemed a caution.

@pstratts There's absolutely no way any referee could look at that and think it was only a yellow card and the position of the foul on the field of play doesn't leave any scenario where an advantage should be played off a red card foul.

I'm not one to criticise referees but all I'll say is: I hope that the referee sees this and learns from it so that it doesn't happen again.

The Ref Cam audio from Leeds 1-1 Man United 🔊

@Daily_Hotspur I don’t see binning him achieves. We’re not an attractive side to watch and that is annoying, but I’d rather we were not getting smashed every week like we did last season. Fix the foundations and see where we are end of season and what the transfer window looks like.

What you picking: #thfc should sack/back Thomas Frank…

@BBCNews RIP Chris. An absolute legend and Road to Hell (the album version) is a masterpiece. Every year I’ve made a hilarious joke to my family that Chris Rea has just set off on his odyssey home for Xmas, hoping he doesn’t get stuck in tailbacks etc. The journey is no more, sad news

Driving Home for Christmas singer Chris Rea dies at 74 bbc.in/4seLlT6

BEAT THE QUEUES ✅ HERTFORD VS WARE ⚽️ THE A10 DERBY TO SEE OUT 2025 📅 YOU WONT WANT TO MISS THIS ❌ PURCHASE TICKETS VIA LINK BELOW 🎟️ 🔗 buytickets.at/htfc/1984359 #htfc #blues #hertfordtownfc

Ruining my Saturday today on a trip to Tottenham, it’s a vain hope that #Spurs won’t be as shit as last week.

@CentreC1rcleRef I am bald and a twat at times, so that’s fair enough, but I’m not biased which was an unfair slur which is where I draw the line. I’ve watched the video and didn’t see much wrong with the decisions but yep it’s all angles and opinions.

@pstratts It’s not really abuse, it’s an opinion? You had a bad game, we all have them. As a fan I got emotional, you sent the tweets to Lukas, cest le vie, I don’t blame you. I’m sure the FA will try to charge me for an opinion, it’s all good 🫱🏽‍🫲🏼

That’s another email from the FA 🤣 Confirmed it’s my view ✅ Confirmed he’s a twat ✅ I’ll wait for the charge no doubt … #SnitchesGetStitches 🤣🤣

@CentreC1rcleRef What’s not cool is pointless insults, that doesn’t end well. In the end this is over a football match your team lost. So what? We all know that blaming the ref is ok when you lose I guess and I’m not bothered by that. But I am bothered by abuse culture in general

@CentreC1rcleRef Online abuse doesn’t bother me when I’m the target. You can criticise and are entitled to an opinion, but be brave enough to hang around after the game and discuss it like grown ups. I’m very sure you’ll get another chance this season and it’s cool to have a different view

@CentreC1rcleRef There are people being abused and assaulted every week just for refereeing football. It needs to stop, and if you being reported helps you to reassess what you do then it’s a good thing. Parents have responsibility to be role models for their kids, and as a parent so should you

@CentreC1rcleRef I don’t know if we’ve had a beef in the past Charlie so not sure where this is all coming from, but however County got wind of your tirade it should be seen as a positive. I didn’t know it was you until a few days ago as you use a pseudonym, but this is not about me and you 1/4