10 Ridiculous Refereeing Decisions That Almost Ruined Football

10. Les Mottram (Dundee United vs. Partick Thistle, 1993)

The first entry on this list may be quite obscure, and many of you reading may not understand how a disallowed goal from the Scottish Premier League could be in anyway earth-shattering to the world of football. Well, it isn't, but in some way it certainly had an impact in the construction of football nets. In this game, following a Dundee United corner, striker Paddy Connolly hit an emphatic half-volley into the goal and claim his hat-trick against Partick Thistle. The power of the shot meant that it bounced straight out of the goal from the via the net supports and into the hands of a Thistle defender. The Thistle player then hands the ball to the goalkeeper in clear view of the players, fans and television cameras, but the only person who seems to be oblivious to the whole proceedings is referee Les Mottram. Mottram suspiciously does not motion the ball back to the centre circle for a kick-off, and the Thistle players soon caught onto the referee's immense clanger, and rightly decided to carry on player. The importance of this particular blunder is not only the fact that a referee could be so out of touch with a game that he was supposedly overseeing, but rather that it meant that the more pronounced net supports went out of fashion to make sure that such a mistake could never happen again. Perhaps they should of taken the measure of assigning referees that understand that if the ball bounces out of the net, it still counts as a goal.