Carl Brook IS a disgrace ..... and a “homer”

[CP Gull]

Noticeably, Mr Carl Brook doesnt like to referee a game where we are involved and not give a penalty to the opposition!

According to Soccerbase he has refereed us FOUR times this season and has awarded penalties against us THREE times!!

Dagenham away, Barrow home and now Dover away .... do you get the impression he doesnt like us?

But regardless of that, surely the National League should be asking questions of a referee who has issued a staggering SEVENTY FIVE yellow cards and NINE red cards in just TWENTY games this season???? Mind you it appears he is only just “warming up” as the last THREE games he has been in charge of, he has produced NINETEEN yellows and THREE reds. EIGHT of his RED cards have been produced in his last THIRTEEN games!

Even in the Premier League 2 u23 league, where he also officiates and where they hardly even tackle each other - he has still managed to rack up a further 27 YELLOWS and 2 REDS in just EIGHT games. So that’s ELEVEN REDS in 28 games this season by my reckoning - way too high.

Guess how many of those he has handed out to the HOME team - incredibly just the ONE, and that was in the 90th minute in a game that was already lost 0-2!

So that’s TEN REDS to the away teams!
And just ONE RED to the home teams!

At least he is consistent though - it was a similar story last season in the NL - with 73 YELLOWS and 3 REDS in 22 games - in fact in FIFTY games over the last two seasons, he has only managed to keep his cards in his pocket for the whole ninety minutes - just the ONCE! Overall a total of 14 RED CARDS - but just 2 to the home teams!

You get the impression that this guy knows only one way to maintain control and it doesnt involve common sense!

No wonder Gary Owers thinks he is “rank” - based on his record this season alone I’m sure there are plenty of other Managers who agree!

[lucy6lucy]

Wow

[merse btpir]

The problem these days is precisely because anyone with ambitions of getting to the top of the refereeing tree HAS to start reffing at such a ridiculously young age there is no chance of them having any sort of empathy with either playing or the players.

I've seen them at Watford Academy, who use the Hertfordshire County FA refereeing academy ~ 14 and 15 year olds who know the laws of the game inside out and (if they maintain progress) will be reffing at our level in their early twenties.

Other academies (Crystal Palace spring to mind ~ or at least they used to) totally opt out of this and utilise veteran referees who on the whole know the game inside out, how to spot all the little tricks and impose both their personality and authority to best effect.

By far the best refs I see in football are those in the Isthmian League who are already at the very peak they can get to because they started out too late; mainly after curtailing their playing days in their early twenties because they realised they could get much higher in the game (and who wouldn't want to?) as an official. They contrast so obviously with those 'on the way up' who are quite often self interested in their approach and display far less common sense and feel for the difficulties of playing the game entirely within the laws at times without unintentionally breaching those laws.

The damning statistic in Carl Brooks' stats are those he has racked up in Premier U23 matches.......for goodness sake; that is criminal given the usual nature of that football!

There are eighteen laws of the game; 17 written ones and the eighteenth is 'apply common sense at all times' Neither Mr Brook or some of our players didn't display much of that on Saturday.

[arcadia]

Noticeably, Mr Carl Brook doesnt like to referee a game where we are involved and not give a penalty to the opposition!

According to Soccerbase he has refereed us FOUR times this season and has awarded penalties against us THREE times!!

Dagenham away, Barrow home and now Dover away .... do you get the impression he doesnt like us?

But regardless of that, surely the National League should be asking questions of a referee who has issued a staggering SEVENTY FIVE yellow cards and NINE red cards in just TWENTY games this season???? Mind you it appears he is only just “warming up” as the last THREE games he has been in charge of, he has produced NINETEEN yellows and THREE reds. EIGHT of his RED cards have been produced in his last THIRTEEN games!

Even in the Premier League 2 u23 league, where he also officiates and where they hardly even tackle each other - he has still managed to rack up a further 27 YELLOWS and 2 REDS in just EIGHT games. So that’s ELEVEN REDS in 28 games this season by my reckoning - way too high.

Guess how many of those he has handed out to the HOME team - incredibly just the ONE, and that was in the 90th minute in a game that was already lost 0-2!

So that’s TEN REDS to the away teams!
And just ONE RED to the home teams!

At least he is consistent though - it was a similar story last season in the NL - with 73 YELLOWS and 3 REDS in 22 games - in fact in FIFTY games over the last two seasons, he has only managed to keep his cards in his pocket for the whole ninety minutes - just the ONCE! Overall a total of 14 RED CARDS - but just 2 to the home teams!

You get the impression that this guy knows only one way to maintain control and it doesnt involve common sense!

No wonder Gary Owers thinks he is “rank” - based on his record this season alone I’m sure there are plenty of other Managers who agree!

I went to the game and if you look back on my view on the referee on a reply to Merse I stated that he was a "homer" utter disgrace.
Your research is brilliant it's a shame the F.A. don't think the same.

[nickbrod]

Well hopefully he doesn't ref in National South.

[portugull]

Brilliant post CP Gull.

What I would like to know from the Club is this. Did we submit a Full Report to back up the Video Evidence.
The FA decision states "insufficient evidence." Surely a good case should have been submitted to back up the appeal BUT WAS IT???

The Club cannot rely solely on video evidence it has to state its case for the appeal.
Also what did the referees assessor say on the performance by Mr. Brook? Was the referees assessors Report even considered. Was the Club represented?
Who at the Fa considered this important appeal? Did they even have Mr. Brooks recent Red Card History?

[brucie]

What is insufficient evidence? - they probably mean that the video isn't clear enough. Don't suppose they took Gallifuocco's blatant play acting into account.

The referees card history is staggering - you can't really ignore how many red cards he gives to away teams. It would suggest that it is easy for the home team to manipulate him which has obviously occurred in this match.

[Teigngull]

Anybody who knows the game, at a reasonable level, would surely see that trying to justify Mr Brooks record is futile, it is obvious to me & others, Mr Brooks is clearly not a good or even reasonable referee.
This will no doubt not deter his ambition to ' get on ' in the world of refereeing but hopefully the further he tries to go up the refereeing ladder the more prevalent he wil become & the bigger stature clubs will hopefully sound him & his antics out & prevent his ' it's all about me ' attitude quickly.
Unfortunately, it's the level we're know at that is biting on the arse & I expect it to get worse not better, the sooner we get our act together & start climbing the league's again, I'm afraid to say, we will come up against the likes of Carl Brooks again & again.
Billy Big Bollocks Brooks is the type of referee who could & would ruin a seasons long hard graft with one shrill of his whistle, the correct way to counter this is not to get yourselves in the shite we find ourselves in at this present time.
No sympathy needed.

[merse btpir]

I still maintain the problem really lays in the manner that the refereeing circle regard and demand that referees officiate the game and the very different manner in which it is managed, played and supported.....

I was in that stand (you can see me in the light grey top hard up against the left hand side of it one row from the back) with probably the best view of anyone in the ground to witness that assault by (and I'll repeat it again) slimy Gallifuocco on Aaron Barnes. The guy behind me who turned out to be a director of a National South club; exclaimed loudly 'but he won the ball'. Well if you study the footage ~ ~ @ 1:50 he didn't actually; Barnes won it as you can tell from where it ended up, the throw-in in favour of Dover; and you'll see the ref take absolutely no action over that challenge; but that is irrelevant because under today's interpretation, Gallifuoco used excessive force in contradiction of the current interpretations of Law 12, yet how many of you are irritated when that interpretation is used?

Gallifuocco's foot made direct contact with Barnes' shin; not only that but it was the upraised sole of his foot.

So in that instance the referee is not interpreting as he is commanded to do and the visiting club director reckons that is perfectly OK and that the game has gone soft. But has it? Has he ever suffered a broken leg? (I have had two) has he had his career permanently hindered and eventually ended as Durrell Berry did by just such a challenge in exactly the same spot two years ago?

The present day interpretation is there precisely to minimise those chances, and why shouldn't it be?

In the light of the referee's shocking home bias shown by his card waving statistics towards home teams; I ask you what do you think the outcome of that incident might have been had the roles been reversed and an away player going in like that away from the all pervading influence of Chris Kinnear ~ might it not well have been the summary dismissal that (and I still think it was correct) Elliot Romain suffered?

[brucie]

That challenge is worse than Romains - no doubt if that had been our player committing the foul the useless prick would soon have been brandishing the red card.

Would have gone tonight had we won at Dover. If the referee had officiated even handedly that might well have been the case. The more I look at the penalty I don't think L-E had the slightest chance of preventing the ball hitting his hand.

Of course it isn't the referees fault we are getting relegated but to shaft us up the arse in the manner he did is still bloody hard to take. Never gets any easier.

[Teigngull]

Lets not go down the road of blaming Carl Billy Big Bullocks Brooks for our ultimate demise this shocking, entirely avoidable, season.
Let's debate the awful standard of refereeing that's been available in this league, but let's for one minute not forget why we are where we are right now, mismanaged from the General manager down is not the fault of one useless individual masquerading as a competent referee. We shouldn't lose our focus on where we've gone wrong.
Not too long ago, we were getting the likes of Keith Cooper, Martin Bodenham, Roger Milford amongst others who, one week would be getting a top flight game on a Saturday & then a e.g. Torquay v Newport on a tuesday, this gave refs the chance to experience the game at all levels & enab!ed them to get a measured perspective of the pro game as a whole no matter what level they were referring , by no means we're they the finished article (Mr K Cooper , Pontypridd. Springs to mind on more than one occasion) but the standard was way superior to today.
Trouble is you can never go back, can you.

[Guildford Gull]

Perhaps Billy Big Bollocks Brook would like to explain why he didn't take any action against the Dover player who push Romain in the chest after the foul that led to the red card.

[Eirik]

We better hope that we get him as a referee at Plainmoor in the future.