Manchester City Women 1-1 Chelsea Women
Chelsea Women entertain London rivals West Ham at Kingsmeadow this weekend, relieved to have pinched a point off Manchester City after an eventful away game.
That match finished 1-1, with the Blues levelling deep into injury time after City looked to have survived being reduced to nine players by an unexpected display of overzealous refereeing.
Women's football has grown rapidly as a sport in recent years while managing to avoid most of the swearing, shamming and violence that still sadly characterises the men's game on a fairly regular basis.
The chanting is cleaner, fans of rival clubs mingle without the need for rigorous separation, families feel confident about attending games together – even with very young children in tow. And crucially, a lot more respect is shown towards the match officials than the near-constant abuse that is flung at the ref and assistants at many men's matches.
But the howls of fury from City fans that accompanied referee Emily Heaslip as she was given a security escort from the pitch after Manchester City v Chelsea may have reset the button.
No one wants to see refs being sworn at by players for the decisions they make, and a determination to crackdown on bad language and arguing is perfectly valid. But for City to lose two players thanks to double yellow cards left neutrals scratching their heads – especially as the game wasn't in the least violent.
It was gritty, it was whole-hearted, but there was no suggestion of anything overly physical about it.
So when, with City 1-0 ahead two-thirds of the way through the first half, Alex Greenwood was shown a second yellow card for time-wasting, there was general bafflement.
With the new regime of adding more and more minutes of stoppage time after the half-time and full-time whistles, time-wasting is a diminishing issue. And what would be the point of frittering away a few extra seconds in the first half anyway?
Then, in the second half, Lauren Hemp was also red-carded for a second bookable offence after vigorously questioning a refereeing decision. Last season, Heaslip would probably have shrugged it off.
But the woman-in-yellow was so strict on enforcing the rules this time round that she ended up brandishing a bewildering total of 11 cards in the game, including one to City manager Gareth Taylor for expressing his indignation.
While many refs in the Women's Super League go entire matches without feeling the need to book anyone, Heaslip has only kept all her cards in her pocket three times in her last 15 outings.
Will such rigorous refereeing continue when the Blues take on the Hammers at Kingsmeadow? London derbies can be tasty, but officials need to get a grip on card numbers and issue more final warnings if this season isn't to end up with regular 10v10 or even 9v9 games.
Hayes characterised the draw at City, with Guro Reiten grabbing a scrappy 96th minute equaliser, as "a missed opportunity". Will her players, who seemed oddly out of sorts in the finishing department at Manchester, come good against West Ham on Saturday evening?
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
