Johnny Phillips: Golden goals, silver goals...and a disappearing ref!
It is every manager’s nightmare – one of your team is temporarily off the pitch and the opposition score.
It happened at Craven Cottage during the midweek Carabao Cup match between Fulham and Tottenham.
Richarlison equalised for the visitors after Marco Silva’s side were momentarily reduced to 10 men when Kenny Tete was forced to leave the field to replace his damaged boot.
The defender returned from the dressing room with a new boot but a look of dismay on his face.
On that occasion the absence was not too costly. The game went to a penalty shoot-out and Tete had the last laugh, striking the winning spot-kick to put Fulham through.
That incident brought back a memory of a bizarre moment lower down the leagues many years ago when a referee had to leave the pitch.
It was one of the earliest games I worked on at Sky Sports and the fact that it was televised live made it all the more excruciating for the official involved.
The date was May 3, 2004, the venue was Gay Meadow.
Shrewsbury Town were playing their first season in the Conference after a painful relegation the previous season. Player-manager Jimmy Quinn had turned things around, though. With gates averaging over 4,000, the Shrews had stopped the rot and found themselves in the play-off semi-finals, where two fixtures against Barnet stood between Quinn’s side, the final and a chance to return to the Football League.
Trailing 2-1 from the first leg, Bob Pollock – the man in the middle – took centre stage when he awarded Shrewsbury a penalty a couple of minutes before half-time of the second leg.
