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Match Facts
Nationwide Div 1
21st April 2003
Bramall Lane
Att:21,277
Referee:
A D'Urso (Billericay).
www.ratetheref.co.uk
 
 
Leicester City
Walker
Impey
Elliott (c)
Heath
Rogers
Davidson
Stewart
Scowcroft
Benjamin (86)
Dickov (75)
Deane 04 (56)
subs
Summerbee
Taggart (86)
Wright (75)
McKinlay (56)
O'Grady
Leicester City 1 Sheff Utd 2
This match review is brought to you in partnership with a Ginsters' pork pie.


Benjamin is rugby tackled...no yellow for the Blades though.

 

A 12.30 kick off for the Sky cameras and City fans knew it would be a tough game. Sheff Utd are one of the best teams in the division without a doubt.

City fans soon stopped having any thoughts that maybe Sheff deserved to go up though when they read Neil Warnock's programme notes slagging us off and saying what a disgrace it was we went into administration.

"I have to say that having gone into administration I find it quite immoral that they have been allowed to do what they have done off the field." he wrote.

Match Stats
Goals: 3
First goal: 4 mins
Yellow Cards: 7
Red Cards:1
First Scorer: Deane
 
 
Blades
Kenny
Curtis
Kozluk (88)
Jagielka
Murphy
Ndlovu
Brown
Tonge
Rankine
Asaba 15 95
Windass (67)
subs
Peschisolido
Montgomery
Allison (88)
Kabba (67)
Cas
 
 

Is anyone else getting as sick as us at the moaning petty moron's gobbing off? Grow up Warnock and just get on with being an half decent football manager and stop embarrassing your fans.

Muzzy Izzet was missing due to the 6 stitches in his knee and Frank Sinclair was also absent (probably still in a nightclub in Chesea celebrating promotion). Gerry Taggart was on the bench with Billy McKinlay, so Matt Heath got a start.

The Sheff Utd fans welcomed Brian Deane back warmly and he repaid them by scoring after only 4 minutes!

Tricky Trev Benjamin did some nifty work out on the left wing, managing to elbow Peter Ndlovu in the head in the process. D'Urso in his first inept decision of the game, played on, and after a couple of passes to Stewart and Dickov the ball came back to Trev who sent in a great curling cross that found Brian Deane on the far post. A low volley was driven in. 1-0 City. Far too easy.

Mr Warnock was having kittens on the touchline already.

The game was a bit rough and there were plenty of dodgy tackles going on. Windass elbowed Rogers in the mouth in front of us but D'Urso of course didn't see it. Windass and Warnock went ballistic as if Rogers was faking it. Now Rogers may be a bit rubbish now and then but he's never been a cheat and doesn't go down very often.

So City fans not only had Warnock to taunt "Warnock, what's the score" but also laughed at Windass every time he stuffed up from then on in.

Ten minutes later we were going ballistic. Though not as ballistic as Impey. Michael Tonge got the ball about half way and legged it down the left wing. The ball appeared to go out of play down our end and Impey stopped trying to tackle. But the lino didn't flag, Tonge put a low cross in and Asaba beat Walker to make it 1-1.

Impey ran the length of the pitch to chase the lino and had to be pulled back by one of the City bench who ran after him. Impey was booked for his trouble. Moral of this tale Impey...play to the bloody whistle and don't chase the linesmen and get a needless yellow card.

Things didn't improve. Scowy nearly gave a penalty away, yellow cards were flashed all over the place for our players, but not theirs, and there were only a few chances on goal for either team.

Half time saw Former City and Blade "Legend" Alan Birchenall (who?) doing the draw. Don't know where they dug him up from. (Don't forget, 10.30 on Sunday to help him collect money!)

Second half got even worse. As the photo shows above Big Trev was rugby tackled at one point but still D'Urso didn't get his card out for them. But he did for us. Again and again. Callum Davidson picked up his second yellow...when he had won the ball. He plodded off the field and it was starting to look more likely that we would lose the game.

Stewart and Rankine got into a barny and both got booked. Dickov got booked for encroaching on a freekick (couldn't you see D'Urso just desperately waiting to award that one eh?) and City fans were witnessing a totally disgraceful refereeing performance.

Both teams hit the woodwork but as the game wore on Sheff Utd used their extra man, and D'Urso, and pushed City deeper and deeper. Adams put on Taggart, McKinlay and Wright and screamed at Tommy Wright to get stuck in and chase balls down and not to be so deep. Tommy responded well and pressured Kenny in goal several times.

City were defending like troopers but City fans were cringing when 4 minutes of extra time was shown by the 4th official. Most of that had come from where they'd been elbowing us in the head. Sheff Utd pushed and pushed and you would have put money on them scoring. City fans were whistling like mad and screaming at D'Urso, but he played on and on and yup, of course, they scored. In the 6th minute of added on time. Asaba again.

D'Urso immediately blew the whistle for the end of the game at the restart and the City players dejectedly clapped the away fans who responded passionately.

Thank god we were already promoted. D'Urso probably just robbed us of a shot at the Championship. The man is a cheat and a disgrace. All 3 goals probably shouldn't have been allowed and the authorities really need to look closely at that performance.

City
STATS
Blades
4
Shots On Target
12
2
Shots Off Target
4
17
Fouls (Conceded)
18
6
Corners
11
5
Yellow Cards
2
1
Red Cards
0