The Councillor Who Forgot About VAR?

22nd JULY 2026

The teams are out on the indoor Town Council pitch for yet another game, the whistle goes and just a few minutes in the public are allowed to make themselves heard, as is usual, from the stand. Stand, singular, yes there they all are, sat in a line of approximately 8 chairs. There’s not much in the way of ticket sales recently - even though they are completely free.

The season-ticket holding fan in seat A2 is vocal, questioning the timing of one player’s recent ascendance within the team to captain, and rather oddly upon hearing this the previous captain, also on the pitch, was having absolutely none of it. No, and was she getting more than a little flustered? Hmmm.

The crowd now quiet, the game moves on with a pass to another subject, but after a few minutes, suddenly, out of the blue, in a rather middle-class, verbal-version of the infamous karate-kicking Eric Cantona moment, the ex-captain in yellow jumps over the barrier into the stand to issue a further quite unnecessary mini-lecture to the fan, much to their astonishment!

Astounded and watching on, players from other teams are looking to the female referee to get this under control, but something damn weird is going on there too, the ref doesn’t stop the game – despite a clear call for an intervention, the referee freezes. Has she lost control of the game? Forgotten her job? People in the stadium even wonder if she showing favour to the clearly bang out out of order player? Surely not? Just what is going on here?

The player staddles back over the barriers, returning to the pitch and only after being asked to issues a two-word forced faux-apology over her shoulder back to towards the stunned fan in the stand – does the player think they’ve got away with it?

Ooooooooo. Hold on, it’s going to VAR .....it’s gone to VAR!

The player is invited to comment on what they’ve done, and oooooo the excuses come out. We can’t quite hear what they’re saying, but we catch bits of it – maybe they believe the fan accused them of lying? Maybe they got emotional? She starts rambling about what it was like when she was captain.

Then there’s a very strange turn of events, the player in yellow now makes out they were bullied into making the lacklustre and seemingly insincere two-word apology by a player from another team! What’s all that about? Are they losing it?

Have they’ve forgotten it’s on video, where their skewed version of events can be cross-analysed with what actually happened.

Hmmm, a tense wait for the VAR officials.

Well, now it gets weirder again, but this time its because the decision seems confusing, are the officials having an off day too?

VAR officials observe a clear foul, against the rules.

They also find that in fact the out-of-order player was not at all bullied into their (rather crap) apology by a player from another team at all. So why make out they were? The player from the other team had been slighted to the VAR officials for no fathomable reason – it must have been a grudge?

In the modern game, we’re seeing too much of this in Ross-on-Wye. The play-acting. The playing the victim when you’re the one who’s committed the foul. It is something we’ve seen multiple players from the same team try.

We've seen players from the same team routinely moaning to officials about other players or even fans when it’s only their actions on and off the pitch which are under scrutiny. A strategy to stop being held to account?

We've seen a failure to hold people to account before, perhaps some players think the officials are there to be 'gamed'.

Well, the VAR officials have come to a final decision. What is it? Despite officially a breach of the rules, they decide to take no real action. People do question VAR decisions?

So there we have it - one player with their tail a bit between their legs should maybe consider themselves lucky for getting a yellow not a red despite a clear foul being registered.

Back soon with more coverage… and has the player tackled anyone before in any heated iffy moments? – will there be anything else that could come back to haunt them?