Mark Clattenburg keeps it simple in the Birmingham derby

[loz]

Did anyone see the incident in the Birmingham Villa derby where two players went head to head for a bit of typical Premiership footballer handbags at 12 paces and Clattenburg dealt with it in a somewhat unorthodox but welcome manner?

Basically the game was still going on and he ran toward the two bickering players and physically shoved the Birmingham player away so that he backpedaled about 5 or 6 paces - meanwhile Clattenburg just kept running as if nothing had happened and carried on following the path of the ball.

Class refereeing and well worthy of a

If anyone finds a clip of it please post it.

[Backbiter]

Imagine if the ref was in the way of a player going for the ball or making a run and he just shoved the ref out of the way. Would the ref just get on with it or would he red card him for assault?

[loz]

I take your point but in general (Poll and Frisk apart) refs aren't a bunch of perfumed nonces who love nothing more than the site of their own faces and the chance to stroke their own egos by pretending to be hard by getting into a spat of playground bickering. It was just nice to see a ref do something which boiled down to saying 'You're being a pillock, get on with it)