1. Mackie was offside when the pass was made.
2. Liam Ridgewell was challenging for the ball at the same time as Taylor and the latter was therefore technically not the last and only man preventing a goal.
3. The offence, if you believe one to have taken place occurred a yard at least outside the area.
4. Maik Taylor plays the ball before Mackie and he collide.

I was in line with the incident and could not believe the ineptitude of not only the referee but the assistant who has missed the original offside because he wasn’t anywhere near up with play and was useless to help the referee out regarding the position of the penalty area edge for the same reason.

Taylor was dismissed, Doyle came on, Fahey was sacrificed, Paul Gallagher dispatched the penalty and the St Andrews crowd were incensed and rightly so. Worse was to come as Ridgewell broke his leg in an innocuous but perfectly legal challenge with Mackie 10 minutes later. A second forced substitution; on this occasion Franck Queudrue whom many believed should have been on the pitch in the first place.

Blues remained the better side despite the disparity in numbers with Jerome and O’Connor up front causing the Plymouth defence problems. Argyle did have the ball in the net after only six minutes when Ashley Barnes followed up a speculative shot. He was miles offside readers and I mean miles so it hardly deserves a mention. Apart from this Blues played well although the task of beating Plymouth was made so much harder by the complete numpty in the black. Seven minutes were added to the first half in lieu of Liam Ridgewell’s injury.

St Andrews was a cauldron of seething resentment and sense of injustice and the referee was given a hard time for the rest of the match. A free kick after 4 minutes of the restart was met by Franck Queudrue’s header when Romain Larrieu his countryman in the Plymouth goal failed to collect. He complained he was pushed but it was more a case of he came, he flapped and he missed. The ball ended up in the Tilton Road net and the faithful were lifted. 

I have to say that I share Alex McLeishs’ disappointment that we didn’t go on to win the match. The players gave everything they had and Jaidi, who went up for every set piece whilst running back to cover his defensive responsibilities, deserves special mention. He could barely run in the six minutes added on at the end for another injury to one of the Plymouth players. Nevertheless, he kept going right to the final whistle as did all the players wearing the blue of Birmingham. Plymouth had another goal chalked off for offside again correctly. Thank God that the Assistants got those decisions right although they were so clear cut even Mrs Bazza could have called them! As for the referee, he continued to make incorrect calls to the exasperation of the Blues? players and the assembled crowd. How he ruled that a shoulder charge into the back of Murphy in the area was not a penalty was completely beyond me. That was as stone wall as they come and after the ridiculous carry on in the first half astonishing that it could be waved away.

I thought the performance by Lee Mason at Brammall Lane was bad but this defied credulity. Michael Oliver and Lee Mason have in my opinion cost Blues five points which would be very handy right now wouldn’t they? It is incredible that a team in our position have only been awarded one penalty all season; the one given to us at Portman Road on Boxing Day. I can think of at least six incidents that warranted a spot kick. If we fail to get promoted it will be our own fault to an extent but some of the poor refereeing we have had to endure throughout has contributed. They say that these things even out over a season but the errors we have had go against us in recent times have been crucial and to the advantage of one of our main rivals in particular; Sheffield United. If there is any justice in this world I pray we can hold them off. It would be a travesty were they to steal the automatic spot that is rightfully ours.

KRO SOTV