Chesterfield receive apology over penalty incident against Tranmere Rovers

The Spireites were denied a stonewall penalty last Saturday in the 1-1 draw at Tranmere Rovers. Town were winning 1-0 when Lee Bonis was wiped out in the box by Nathan Smith. Had it been given, that would have presented the visitors with a great opportunity to double their lead in the latter stages of the game. Instead, the appeals were rejected and Tranmere scored a last-gasp equaliser.

When Bonis was taken out in the area, the loose ball fell to Ronan Darcy and his shot was cleared off the line. But there was no signal from referee Scott Oldham to indicate that he had played the advantage. He simply did not think it was a foul on Bonis. Town have now gone 13 months without being awarded a penalty in their favour.

Blues boss Paul Cook spoke to head of refereeing in the EFL, Mike Jones, this week and again they received an apology. It comes just a couple of weeks after they got an apology for a decision to book Tom Naylor against Salford City when it actually should have been a free-kick the other way. It proved costly because it was his fifth of the season and triggered a one-match ban.

When asked if they had received any feedback this week on the penalty incident at Prenton Park, first-team coach Gary Roberts: “Same again, the gaffer speaks to the head of referees, Mike Jones, and you get the same thing – ‘we apologise and it’s a penalty’ and stuff like that. He (Oldham) has got to see it."

Although Chesterfield appreciate the feedback they are getting and understand what a difficult job it is to be a referee, it has got to the point where they are questioning if there is much point in such calls.

Roberts said: “What do you get out of it now? Because it seems like every other week we are getting an apology or saying he (the referee) has made the wrong decision. It is nice of them to say they have made a mistake but we get nothing from it. I just find it hard for him (Oldham) to miss it. I know it has fallen to Ronan (Darcy) and the lad has done really well on the line to stop it. But there was no advantage. It has got to be a penalty. There is a high chance you score the penalty to make it 2-0 and then that goes down as a perfect away performance. That would have killed the game. As the gaffer says, has it affected the result of the game? You’d have to say it has.”

Tranmere themselves felt hard done to after having an equaliser from a corner ruled out before half-time for offside, although it was not obvious to anyone watching in the ground or when looking back at the replays.

"They (the officials) weren’t clear on that either,” Roberts added. “They (Tranmere) were going nuts on the sidelines. I don’t know if he affected the keeper. I don’t know if it was similar to the Everton-Spurs one (Iliman Ndiaye on Vicario). But I don’t think they (Tranmere) got real clarity on what it was either. Obviously that went for us but I think he affected the keeper being in an offside position.”