Rivals united in exasperation at man in middle

Rivals united in exasperation at man in middle

Mar 27 2006

Comment by Andy Gilpin, Daily Post

DAVID MOYES called him "over fussy" but you could have used a few choicer words to describe referee Phil Dowd after Saturday's stop-start derby.

The Everton manager was a picture of restraint as he discussed the actions of a man who had booked seven of his players and sent off another as his team limped to defeat at Anfield.

Secretly Moyes must have been fuming about the Staffordshire official's display, and Rafael Benitez couldn't have been much hap-pier either.

But at least Dowd, handling his first derby, was consistent.

In the first half he gave everything against Liverpool, and in the second it was Everton who were left staring at his card and shaking their head.

The "friendly derby" this was not.

With five players having gone in the previous five meetings between the cross-Stanley Park rivals, the game needed a man with a cool head.

Instead the game got Philip Dowd, whose answer for everything seemed to be wave a card.

The old adage goes "you know the referee's had a good game if you don't notice him".

But in these days of the "cult of referee", the men in the middle are often the stars - or indeed villains - of the show..

Could anyone reel off the names of five top-flight referees with ease a decade ago?

Anyone save the more studious among us would be struggling, but now they trip off the tongue like a vitriolic who's who.

And while Dowd may be one of the lesser-known lights, his name won't be forgotten on Merseyside in a hurry as he lit the powderkeg on a derby that never needs much igniting.

Gone are the days of Everton supporters holding hands with their Red brethren as they mix in the ground. This Premiership match-up has seen more red cards than any other.

And Everton were ready for the fight from the off.

Moyes won the tactical battle for the opening period by starving Steven Gerrard - again deployed on the right - of the ball..

But the game turned in just 35 seconds of the 17th minute. And, of course, it was down to a refereeing decision.

Moyes's battleplan had the desired effect as a frustrated Gerrard saw yellow for kicking the ball away, before scything down Kevin Kilbane seconds later.

Dowd thought he had no option than to send the Liverpool captain packing, but the Everton supporters who rubbed their hands in glee were disappointed as the dismissal seemed to knock them out of their stride.

While no-one could really argue with the dismissal, it was what Dowd proceeded to do next that really seemed to get home backs up.

Despite blowing up for any minor infraction, he repeatedly missed fouls on Peter Crouch and his lacklustre handling of the match was summed up when he booked Alan Stubbs and Harry Kewell - the latter, it appeared, for doing a little dance. Perhaps he needed a pair of Mohamed Sissoko's glbuttes.

Under Benitez, Liverpool are expert at soaking up pressure and as the attacking impetus switched away from them to Everton after the sending off of captain Gerrard, they showed little signs of cracking.

This year's derby gimmick was to put 08 on the shirts of Gerrard and James Beattie, celebrating Liverpool's year as capital of culture in 2008. It's not a marketing ploy likely to be repeated. One was sent off and the other was anonymous.

Dowd, unfortunately, wasn't and the crowd's ire grew as he failed to book Leon Osman for kicking the ball away in a carbon-copy of the Gerrard's first booking.

The anger was tempered at half-time by something Liverpool supporters could scarcely dream of.

They went 1-0 up against rivals Everton, with a former Manchester United player bagging an own goal - and they only needed 10 men to do it! The red half of Liverpool was in dream-land.

While the Anfield crowd doesn't hold the same disregard for Phil Neville as it does for his "Scouser-hating" big brother, he is still a Neville, and he did ply his trade at Old Trafford.

How Neville must hate Merseyside derby day, after seeing red in the first.

Dowd's performance was briefly forgotten as Anfield erupted at the half-time whistle. But even that euphoria couldn't save Dowd from ear-piercing whistles as he left the field.

But as the second half kicked off, he was a changed man.

This time it was Everton who had every 50-50 go against them and two things became clear, it wasn't going to stay 1-0, and it certainly wasn't going to remain 10-11.

Any rallying cry from Moyes went out the window two minutes into the second period as Crouch nodded on to Luis Garcia for a soft goal for Everton to concede.

A sucker punch, yes. But it wasn't a person blow.

Tim Cahill found a chink in the Liverpool backline soon after to put the match back on a knife-edge.

But while this should have been the cue for Everton to lay siege to the Liverpool goal, Dowd still had another card to play.

When substitute Andy van der Meyde jumped up elbow-first on Xabi Alonso right in front of the official, there was only going to be one outcome and Dowd took his chance to even things up.

Liverpool goalkeeper Pepe Reina complained earlier in the week that the Premiership was "too rough".

How those words must have been echoing around his mind when he caught a glimpse of Everton's other substitute, 6ft 5ins of angry Scottish muscle, Duncan Ferguson.

The big Scot - back after a seven-match ban - was brought on to shake things up. The reason he couldn't was largely down to van der Meyde's dismissal and Everton's gameplan once Ferguson had taken the field.

The plan involved pumping the ball up to him for the remainder of the match, allowing Jamie Carragher and co to soak up the pressure, before Kewell found the person blow with a fantastic strike late on. In the end, Liverpool didn't need their captain fantastic, but the mad minute from Gerrard could well have swung the game in Everton's favour.

Benitez blanked his captain as he trudged off the pitch after just 18 minutes, but both the crowd and the manager found it easy to forgive their talisman as they celebrated victory on the final whistle.

In fact, Liverpool supporters chanted his name on 55 minutes - keeping their choice words solely for Phil Dowd.

And - unlike their manager - so did the Everton supporters.