Tuesday 27th October, 2009last year, at the end of October
Singing for the unsung Lee Bullock
In every football team, particularly those enjoying success, there are the fan’s heroes. In the main these are the eyecatching players, usually strikers because they score the goals. but there are also the unsung heroes who don’t get the recognition they deserve!
Stuart McCall is fond of comparing his current team with the side of ‘84-’85 which won the old 3rd division championship. Stuart himself and John Hendrie immediately come to mind. But for John Hendrie there was Mark Ellis (who played on the left even though he was right footed) and for Stuart McCall there was Martin Singleton – The unsung heroes of the side.
Today’s team is no different. the eyecatching players might be Scott Neilson, Gareth Evans and Michael Flynn but for Evans we also have James Hanson and for Flynn we also have Lee Bullock – the current unsung heroes.
Now I’m not in the habit of watching particular players but, before Saturday’s win over with Hereford I’d decided to pay particular attention to Lee Bullock to see how he was growing into his more withdrawn midfield role. I watched him for around 80 minutes until his totally unjustified sending off. In that time he regularly won the ball (often breaking up dangerous Hereford attacking moves in the process) and passed it, usually forwards, to a team mate in space.
Now cynics might say he was just doing his job but, it was more than that! He was doing his job well. In the whole 80 minutes I only saw him make one misplaced pass. To my mind Bully epitomises the unsung hero – doing a good job week in and week out but, because he’s not eyecatching, he won’t win many man-of-the-match awards during a season.
Bullock fell foul of a Referee who sent him off for a second bookable offence. In a season when we’ve had some shockers (the league seemingly saving their worst for games involving Bradford City) This chap was bad.
Fans don’t ask for much. just impartiality and consistency. OK, this ref was consistent – he got just about everything wrong, awarding free kicks for challenges which weren’t even unfair and waving play-on after late tackles, pushes in the back or deliberate hand balls.
It’s a common lament that things will even out over the season. If this is the case then surely we’re due some first rate referees some time soon.
I love this website and I love the passion shown by football fans. I don’t get to many games so have to rely on these articles for my taste of City. The only thing I don’t like is the way we constantly have a go at the referees.
I’ve looked at the reports and thought two bad offside decisions and a poor sending off. However, when I look at the match highlights, I see the opposite. Obviously you cannot tell on a highlights package, but both goals look well offside. As for the sending off, why would Bullock not get a yellow card for that challenge? – his tackle is really late. I don’t like yellow cards for everything in the modern game, but that is what we have and that challenge is always going to be a yellow card.
Now I haven’t seen his first yellow or any of the other disputed bits of refereeing, but I don’t think fans do themselves any favours when they criticise refs all the time.
Totally agree about Bully’s contribution & I’ve been saying the same since he came to City – his work rate is excellent & ability to snuff out danger before it arises. His reading of the game is why he doesn’t get the credit he deserves as he doesn’t do anything flashy & doesn’t need to do eye-catching last minute desperation tackles as he’s usually in the right position in the first place & covering others mistakes. I do tend to agree with Robert too though that the referee was OK compared to some of the ones we’ve seen at VP. Bully tried to do a Maradona for the first deserved booking (a rare & uncharacteristic aberration) and the second was a slightly tired & mistimed tackle, not malicious in my opinion & I would have given a final warning although I can see now why the ref deemed it a second bookable offence – harsh but not incompetent.
Isn’t the incompetence to do with, once he had established a level of tackle for which he books, not sending off Valentine? Harsh refereeing is one thing but harsh reffing for one side and not the other is surely wrong.