By John Considine
In these couple of seconds from yesterday's game between Brentford and Leeds United both managers raise their hands into the air. If they were not taking part in a Mexican Wave then what prompted a similar reaction from the opposing managers. Were they reacting to the same event in the same way? Or, maybe, one manager was reacting to a challenge by a player from the opposing team and the other manager was reacting to the decision of the referee to award a free. We don't know but we are more likely to think it is the second explanation because we start with the belief that they are unlikely to agree.
A seminal paper in the area is over 70 years old. It is called "They Saw A Game". The game was a robust 1951 football game between Dartmouth and Princeton. When the authors solicited the views of the respective student supporters, they discovered that the students saw the game differently. My guess is that a survey of supporters of Brentford and Leeds United would also disagree on a share of referee decisions from yesterday. Therefore, I would question the research that measures referee-error using fan websites.
A seminal paper in the area is over 70 years old. It is called "They Saw A Game". The game was a robust 1951 football game between Dartmouth and Princeton. When the authors solicited the views of the respective student supporters, they discovered that the students saw the game differently. My guess is that a survey of supporters of Brentford and Leeds United would also disagree on a share of referee decisions from yesterday. Therefore, I would question the research that measures referee-error using fan websites.
RSS Feed
