Wally with a Brolly

Without its fair share of controversy football clearly wouldn't be as exciting. The Hand of God, Zidane's head-butt, Waddle's mullet and FIFA's decision to keep an old overweight and corrupt Swiss banker at its head are numerous talking-points which still keep us debating and arguing. So here comes the first of a regular feature. Here comes the first Rant. And God does it deserve a capital R!

As a few of the team at WWaB use contact lenses, we are acutely aware of the trouble of bad eyesight. It is no laughing matter. Trust us, people without their contacts are basically blind. So, here at WWaB, we are starting a petititon to offer free prescription contact lenses to Mark Clattenburg, who happens to be suffering from a pretty severe bout of Old-Trafforditis.

"Alright let's concentrate. Did Nani hand-ball? Yes. Was there an advantage for Tottenham? No. Logical conclusion is therefore...goal for Man U! Crap, why is this migraine thing starting again?"

Mark Clattenburg's decision to award Nani his "goal" is, let's be fair, one of the worst decisions we at WWaB have EVER seen on a football pitch.

Hand of God? Scummy Diego did move his head to act like he didn't use his hand.

Germany's goal against England at the 2010 World Cup? Ref not helped at all by his blind (recurrent theme here!) linesman nor by fat Sepp's decision to ban the use of video replays.

Atwell's decision not to award the infamous "shadow goal" last season during Bristol City-Crystal Palace? Actually we have no excuse for that one either, the whole stadium saw it. Even the guy selling the pies underneath the stand saw it. And it's not easy to see through all that grease!

These men sell pies. They still would ref better than Atwell and Clattenburg combined.

But let's get back to Clattenburg's howler. Let's recap (really?): Nani dives, wants a penalty, handballs it in that Ronaldo "I've been touched by air and fallen on my ass, give me that pen already" manner that we all love to hate and then acts like a cry-baby when he doesn't get the "decision". So far nothing abnormal. Even the fact Nani was seemingly suffering from convulsions (always a good way to make the crowd love you) wasn't particularly surprising. So far, Mark Clattenburg had gotten EVERYTHING RIGHT, even casually telling Nani to get up.

Obviously ball to hand

And then the inexplicable. Gomes being told to play on, accused by Clattenburg of taking too much time and using his advantage, and Nani allowed to score into an empty net.

Now there are a few explanations that we'd like to advance for Mark Clattenburg's decision:

1. He followed the letter of the law. Actually that is utter crap. He claimed he played advantage. Fair enough we say. But where was it? Where was the advantage for Tottenham in conceding the goal? And shouldn't Clattenburg have followed the letter of the law by booking Nani for his unashamed hand-ball and despicable behaviour?

2. He just doesn't care about messing up. Now we believe at WWaB that this argument carries considerable weight. Look at Clattenburg's reaction after the "goal" is scored. The man just shrugs his shoulders as if to say "I gave Gomes a chance to play advantage". This seems to indicate a total disregard for the consequences of his acts. Is this to do with the fact the FA doesn't seem to ever condemn referees who make outrageous mistakes? After all Graham Poll was still reffing until the 2006 World Cup despite being hated by the whole of the Prem and handing out imaginary red cards. Similarly Stuart Atwell hasn't had a good game in 5 years (ever since he's started reffing above the Ryman Premier League!) and yet still is in charge of big games.


3. He suffers from Old-Trafforditis. No this is not an old sickness coming back to haunt. No Black Death scare or something like that.
Example of what went on inside Mark Clattenburg's head whilst suffering from Old-Trafforditis on saturday:
"Should I just book Nani already? After all he's such a ****! Nah fair enough he didn't get his pen, not gonna book him needlessly. Wait! What is he doing now? Oh **** he's just had a go and scored! But if I disallow it I'm gonna have 74,000 loyal (nah we're only joking here!) fans screaming abuse at me. And Sir Alex is gonna fume as well. I can't have that. Wait! Let me go to my assistant and maybe blame it on him! Nah why bother? Even the FA don't dare to tell Fergie where he can stick his ban against the BBC, so why would I risk getting lynched (again we're joking. Lynching requires loyal and dedicated fans)? What's this? Rio is telling me it's a goal? It must be right, Rio would never lie (intentionally forgets Rio's drugs scandal)!Sod this I'll give the goal and then go home!"

Sometimes you just have to clap when something special happened. And by "special" we don't mean his team's performance. We mean Clattenburg. As in "special needs".

Old-Trafforditis is something pretty common for Premier League referees. It comes from years of Fergie treating the Prem like his personal backyard and the FA buckling under his aura. However Mark Clattenburg suffers from acute trafforditis, having already disallowed another perfectly valid goal when Roy Carroll (remember him?) fumbled a Pedro Mendes shot a few years ago.

Roy's just picking up something a ballboy just happened to forget in his goal

So please sign our petition for free prescription contact lenses for Mark Clattenburg. We honestly hope that will do the trick and he just happens to be blind. But please, just to be on the safe side, can you please also sign the petition to declare an injunction preventing him from being within 500 yard of Old Trafford?

Battenburg. Better ref than his human near-namesake.