Former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg, when watching Georginio Rutter snaffle a contentious late equaliser as West Ham United saw two points slip away at Brighton and Hove Albion, could not help but cast his mind back to 2015.
Simon Hooper was making his top-flight debut that August afternoon a decade ago, the rookie referee handed an opening weekend fixture between Norwich and Crystal Palace at Carrow Road.
While Nuno Espirito Santo was left fuming following Brighton’s 91st minute leveller on the South Coast, it was the Canaries who were spitting feathers ten years back.
Cameron Jerome had brilliantly hooked an acrobatic volley into the Crystal Palace net with the visitors one goal up. Hooper ruled it out, though, for a perceived high boot from the Norwich forward.
Manager Alex Neil labelled the call ‘extremely disappointing’. Canaries icon Chris Sutton called it ‘the worst decision of the season’ on matchday one. And even Palace boss Alan Pardew took sympathy.
A decade on, Hooper found himself at the heart of a very similar controversy. West Ham United boss Nuno felt that Georginio Rutter’s strike should not have counted due to the ball striking his arm seconds before it hit the net.
Clattenburg, though, believes there is another reason why the Hammers can feel they were robbed of a rare win at The Amex.
Photo by Kevin Hodgson/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Mark Clattenburg says West Ham United were unlucky at Brighton and Hove Albion
Former PGMOL chief Keith Hackett felt Konstantinos Mavropanos was fouled before the ball even reached Rutter’s arm. The big defender almost had his head taken clean off his shoulders by the flying Charalampos Kostoulas.
Clattenburg agrees.
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He saw Hooper rule out Jerome’s goal all those years ago and, with the modern game becoming even less accepting of contact or ‘dangerous play’ since then, he cannot understand how Kostoulas got away with it.
His foot was a lot higher, certainly, than Jerome’s was after all.
“There were two parts to this that I want to discuss,” Clattenburg tells HITC Football. “We had a situation where there was a handball in the build-up. The ball comes in from an overhead kick, hits the arm of the attacker. What is interesting is that it does come off the thigh first onto the arm.
“IFAB [the International Football Association Board] changed the rules one or two years ago where, if the ball comes off a part of the body onto the arm, it is not deemed a handball or a deliberate action.
“This is the case here, even though it doesn’t feel right. It does come off [Rutter’s] thigh onto the arm. That is what the VAR would have looked at. That’s not a handball. It’s irrelevant that the arm is slightly away from the body because it comes off that part of the body first.
“It’s then deemed play-on, and what happened afterwards, the ball goes to a teammate who passes back to the attacking player and he scores. So therefore West Ham will feel a little bit aggrieved.
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“But then you’ve also got the situation with the overhead kick,” Clattenburg adds. “There was potential dangerous play. It’s an interesting one.
“It’s interesting that Simon Hooper was the referee all those years ago. He disallowed an overhead kick, and it created such a huge debate and huge criticism for himself. When he disallowed that, he didn’t referee a Premier League game for quite a while.
“He [must have] had that in the back of his mind when he saw that overhead kick. It’s quite identical. You can see the West Ham player putting his head in. The Brighton forward’s foot is quite high.
“Does he make contact? No. But this goal just doesn’t sit right with me.”
Clattenburg feels Georginio Rutter’s equaliser would have been ruled out across Europe
Rutter’s scrappy finish denied West Ham the chance to move level with Leeds and Nottingham Forest on 15 points. Stuck on 13 instead, the Hammers will host potential title dark horses Aston Villa next time out still mired in the relegation zone.
“This overhead kick is close to being dangerous play,” says Clattenburg, who officiated nearly 300 Premier League matches between 2004 and 2017.
“What do you expect? The West Ham player to put his head fully in and have his head kicked? I think when the margins are this tight and the foot is that close to the head, I feel it should be dangerous play and should have been called.
“I feel the goal being disallowed through the high foot would have been accepted more so [than the handball].
“I think it needs to be punished. I think everywhere in Europe, it would have been punished also.”
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