A red season

Pre-season is a time of excitement, of hope, of promise. Your club is back in all the domestic cups and, if you are lucky, in a European cup. The media is full of speculation over the transfers and on a slow news day your club could be linked with Pele, Maradona and Billy the Fish.

As a Newcastle United supporter, I did not enjoy this pre-season. This probably stems from such a disappointing run of results at the end of last season, when we screwed up in the semi-final of the FA Cup and quarter final of the UEFA Cup, then had an even more miserable time in the league with two of our own players fighting in front of home fans. Makes buying the replica shirt worth every penny.

The 2005/06 fixture list was published and Newcastle had been sentenced to Arsenal away on the opening day of the season. I felt more trepidation, expectations of a thrashing and even less excitement at the new football season. Since most football supporters are sadists, I listened to the game live online and was stunned by what I was hearing.

Our five-man midfield, consisting of a couple of new signings, was making Arsenal, the team tipped to be champions, look ordinary. The team were playing well despite no new forwards being purchased and the constant threat of Arsenal's top-class players. My hope was building and football was feeling as it should once again. Maybe the season won't be that bad after all.

Then it happened, 32 minutes into the game the referee decides that the axe should fall upon this 30-minutes of euphoria. Jermaine Jenas, one of the five-man midfield, attempts a well-intentioned but ham-fisted lunge on Gilberto that made contact with the ball and the man. Steve Bennett, the match referee from very near London, toots upon his whistle and issues Jenas with a straight red card.

Naturally this derails our midfield, game tactics and optimism, eventually leading us to a two nil loss. A few days later, the Football Association confirm that Jenas' dismissal was harsh and has been reduced to a caution. The referee, to his credit, requested that the red card be downgraded to a yellow card after reviewing a video of the incident.

What would have happened if he had received a yellow card and stayed on the pitch for the full ninety-minutes? Would we have clung on to a draw or snatched a winner? Who knows? Once again, Lady Luck was out buying a hot meat pie to beat the half-time queues. Why couldn't we have read: Immediately after the tackle, the referee reviewed a video of the incident and gave Jenas a yellow card?

The time has come to seriously consider going the route of cricket, rugby and athletics in their utilisation of instant video reviews of decisions that can change the course of a game, such as penalties and red cards. The ability to reduce Jenas' punishment to a yellow does not reduce the fact that Newcastle lost following his departure - the only aspect we can be grateful for was that this was not a final of some kind, but now I am being silly…Newcastle in a final!