[Cup-tie awarded to Logica due to late arrival of opposition; subsequent friendly ended 2-2.]

[View the Video Highlights Package for this match from the ]

The recent refereeing controversy hit new heights yesterday at the Riverside Lands Stadium when the man in charge of Logica's Big Ron second round cup-tie against Bragança called off the match despite both teams desire to play.

The home side turned up late due to travel problems, and were warned as they emerged from the dressing room by an increasingly irate referee that they had just five minutes left until the cancellation deadline. Bragança players were on the pitch with a few minutes to spare, but it soon became apparent that there was a kit clash. In such situations, the home team are obliged to change their shirts, but Logica had a spare blue kit in the team bus and offered to change to get the game going.

But the referee was having none of this and delivered a highly dramatic and emotional soliloquy on punctuality in amateur football whilst carefully carving out every letter of the law in pedantic detail. By the time the spare kit was retrieved, the deadline would have passed he claimed, as further debate dragged on. At regular intervals the man in black would theatrically declare his intention to head home, then walk away ten yards before turning and returning to ramble up and over the moral high ground once more.

Logica to a player wanted the game to go ahead, and there followed the quite ridiculous scene of both teams pleading with the referee to let them play football. He was having none of it, however, and finally headed for the changing rooms. In a week when Graham Poll has been accused in various self-seeking quarters of acting as if he was the star of the show, this Sportsmans League official took arbiter attention-seeking to a new level by seeking to be the star of no show at all.

That Logica should argue long and hard on playing a match that had already been awarded to them does some credit to the players and Supremo . It is exactly this kind of exemplary moral fibre that will find its reward in footballing heaven. Logica have not won a trophy for sixteen years.

As Logica's second kit arrived, the recently departed referee did little to calm Bragançan frustration by returning to a neighbouring pitch to take charge of a game for which the appointed official had failed to materialise. The fact that this other game (although through no fault of the players) was kicking off some 15 minutes after ours had finally been abandoned, irked many of those players still milling about with nothing to do.

Our deserved reputation for journalistic integrity forces us to note that by the strict letter of the Sportsmans League Rulebook, the referee could justify his actions. However, the common sense approach, particularly in the face of both teams desire to continue, would surely have been to play a shortened competitive match of 35 minutes each way. This has happened umpteen times before when a team arrives late, and is surely the sensible decision that most referees would make. One thinks of our game in October against Portman Arms who arrived far later and with only eight players initially. We were asked if we were happy to wait and play a shortened game, and we were. Far more preferable to 30 players who have got out of bed on a Sunday morning having to return home without kicking a ball due to some anal pedantry.

After all this, both teams were uncertain about any disciplinary ramifications that might result from playing a friendly match without permission. Luckily a league mandarin was refereeing on the next pitch, and at half time sanctioned a 30-minute each way friendly between the two sides. kindly agreed to take the whistle as he didn't want to risk an injury that had variously been diagnosed as broken ribs or a stitch.

The competitive verve is always missing in a friendly, but Logica at least took the opportunity against a neat and pacey Third Division side to practise the more sophisticated passing game that they are in the process of developing. and were at the heart of a number of good moves in the first half, but it was the home side who took the lead just before the interval. A break down the right saw the ball pulled back from the bye-line, which, despite evading one forward, was controlled by another at the back stick before being fired home [0-1].

In the second half, was let off his goalkeeping leash, and swapped places with at centre-half. He immediately stamped his mark on the match and indeed the opposing forward with a bollock-high Boudicean manoeuvre for which a free-kick did scant justice. Logica lost their attacking way at this point and Bragança, having already had one goal ruled out for offside, doubled their lead with a shot looped over from the edge of the box [0-2].

Logica roused themselves from their non-competitive torpor, and carved out some threatening moves as they cranked up the passing. They pulled a goal back when delivered a devilishly arced corner that sailed over a flapping keeper and just inside the angle of back stick and bar [1-2]. Soon a characteristically rampaging run from the back fed , who in turn slipped a visionary reverse pass to the unmarked . The expectant striker took his time, waiting until the keeper had committed himself before clipping the ball over him and rolling it in at the far post [2-2].

And a fine comeback was nearly crowned with a last-kick winner. Some slick passing freed down the left and he unselfishly squared to the unmarked darting through the middle. With the keeper rooted, made good contact and side-footed goalwards only to see a leg somehow stretch out to divert the low shot over the bar.

But was unlikely to be too concerned at being denied a win. After all, his charges had cantered into the third round of the Big Ron Cup without kicking a ball and had enjoyed a useful work-out to boot. Pundits were left wondering whether Logica could somehow engineer a path all the way to the Final without actually playing a game. It could be our best chance of silverware in years...