Bashley DEFENDER Paul Gazzard believes Hook referee Gerard O'Sullivan was wrong to subject him to his second red card in the space of five days during the 2-2 draw against Burgess Hill Town.
While honest enough to admit that he deserved to follow his midweek dismissal against Horsham with a first-half booking on Saturday, he reckons the award of a second yellow after 63 minutes was wrong on two counts.
Firstly it appeared to be teammate Danny Potter - and NOT Gazzard - who clipped Burgess Hill dangerman Steve Harper on the edge of the box; and secondly, the challenge looked too mild to warrant a card being brandished.
Gazzard, in his second season with Bashley since leaving Lymington & New Milton, said: "I don't think I made contact. I thought it was Danny Potter that caught him.
"I'm not one to complain about these things. If it's a booking, fair enough and I've no arguments about the one in the first half. But the second one surprised me. Even if the referee thought it was me, it wasn't a booking. At most the player should have been spoken to, but the referee was very excited about getting the card out."
Team manager Geoff Butler had some harsh words to say about Gazzard in the wake of his stamping offence against Horsham and the 28-year-old from Barton-on-Sea owned up: "I agree with Geoff's opinion. It was a tackle I could have pulled out of and I let the side down."
But he added: "My disciplinary record's not as bad a people think. I might be wrong, but before this week I think I'd only been sent off twice in my life."
Curiously, for the second time in a week Bashley looked a better side for going down to ten men.
Seven minutes after Gazzard had made his exit, the Foresters went 2-1 up courtesy of substitute Chris Knowles, who was played in by some good work from Richard Gillespie on the left of the area.
But history also repeated itself in the last minute of normal time. Just as in the FA Trophy defeat at Hayes, Bashley switched off at the death and an uncharacteristic mistake by Chris Ferrett allowed Harper to beat goalkeeping debutant Alan Walker-Harris with a delectable 30-yard strike.
Butler admitted: "We're struggling at the moment. Our first-half performance was shocking. Some of the senior players seem low on confidence and I don't know why.
"The minute Paul got sent off, I turned to the bench and said 'We'll be at our best now' and we were. Suddenly we played with more confidence and arrogance, we closed people down and started winning our headers and tackles.
"As soon as we went down to ten men we raised our game and, for me, that's a sign that we're playing with fear."
The dilemma for Butler is that he has precious little scope to ring the changes. Of his limited pool of senior players, four were feeling below par on Saturday.
Dave Wakefield is not fully over his back trouble and veteran striker Steve Tate - guesting for Bash while Danny Gibbons serves a three-match suspension - bowed out at half-time with a groin strain.
Havant & Waterlooville loan man Luke Byles hadn't eaten for four days because of a virus and his midfield partner Graeme Gee has not looked the same player since jarring his knee last month.
"We're really up against it," said Butler, whose side have slipped to seventh in the Ryman Division 1.
"We need 16 or 17 quality players if we're going to be contenders. You can't win promotion with a squad of 11 or 12.
"There comes a point when you can't surmount all the obstacles you're facing."
Bash looked particularly poor defensively in the first half and fell behind when Harper's strike took a deflection off Potter in the 21st minute.
The response came nine minutes later - predictably from the boot of 19-year-old Gillespie, who turned and buried Andy Culliford's inviting cross from the right.
It was the Romsey lad's 18th goal of a prolific season, but Butler believes that with a bit more nous he could have had more.
The boss said: "I've never seen a more glaring opportunity to get a penalty than Gilly had in the first half. The Burgess Hill fella's underestimated his pace, Gilly's toed the ball past him and the defender's dangled a foot out. But instead of going down, Gilly's hurdled him, put himself off balance and missed his shot.
"To have gone down wouldn't have been cheating. All Gilly had to do was leave his foot behind and we'd have had a penalty. He's got to learn to be clever."
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