Referee Makes The News But Misses The Game!

Sunday 23.10.2011

Club

Rarely if ever can a county final have started in such strange circumstances as today’s Power NI final between Dromore and Clonoe. The game was barely forty seconds old when Dromore won a free kick forty metres out from the Clonoe goal. One of the Clonoe defenders expressed the view that the free was not a free and referee Eamon Mc Hugh decreed that he was moving the ball forward and ran to indicate where the free kick was now to be taken from. Unfortunately for the Aghyaran man the slippery pitch seemed to catch him slightly off balance and he fell awkwardly to the ground damaging his knee when he landed.

It was clear there was something badly wrong with him and after a very lengthy delay he was helped off the pitch. The game was held up for over seven minutes before the stand by referee Eugene Mc Connell was ready to take Eamon’s place in the middle. Interestingly when the clock reached thirty minutes we were expecting at least the seven minutes that had been lost due to the ref’s injury in the opening seconds of the game plus another minute or two. However instead there were less than six minutes of additional time played which seemed unusual to say the least.

Eamon Mc Hugh had been looking forward to officiating at the biggest game of the club season but spent less than a minute “in the thick of the action”. Most referees hope that they are not really noticed in matches such as these and they get through them unscathed. Rarely do they become the news in big games and finals such as today’s but Eamon certainly made the news today. Hopefully his recovery will be swift and full and it will not be too long until he is back out on the pitch doing what he does best.