Talk:Stuart Attwell

Manchester United refereeing in the 2022-23 season
I have added to an edit someone made today (which could be tidied up a little bit) with information about Stuart Attwell's recent form involving Manchester United. Darren England has started raising my suspicions as well, but I don't have critical mass on evidence against him yet. Attwell however has officiated at least three Manchester United games since the World Cup, all of which had suspect decisions.

In the Leicester City match today (which I have yet to mention in the main article), Attwell as referee failed to penalise a dangerous studs-to-leg foul by Marcel Sabitzer, when pundits such as Souness thought it should have been a sending off. Leicester City player Mendy then got a yellow card, which Gary Neville thought 'very harsh'. Utd's first goal was close to offside, but seems to have been correctly ruled a goal. However, their second goal does appear - as co-commentators and pundits said at the time and after the match - to have been offside. Nonetheless, it was allowed, despite apparent doubts by Marcus Rashford himself. McTominay may have dived, getting Tielemans a yellow card, the ball went out of play during a Utd break that was not called out, and I said to my girlfriend while we watched "I wonder who the referee is. My guess: Stewart Attwell or Darren England". My girlfriend looked it up, and sure enough, the referee was Attwell. I had suspected as much after two dodgy assignments by Attwell not long ago this season. One, including the awarding of a penalty that settled the game, was in the FA Cup against Everton, where the Argentinian Garnacho dived. The other was in the Manchester Derby, where Attwell ruled out a Manchester City penalty case, and then permitted a Manchester United goal by Rashford that was offside by the rules about influencing the phase of play.

I am a fan of Marcus Rashford, but it does seem that he, and more importantly Ten Haag, do get decisions to go their way this season, such as with these officials. It's interesting to note also that the unfair advantage given to Utd doesn't stop there. Since the World Cup, I believe (do check) that Manchester Utd have played 15 matches in all competitions. Of these, TEN have been at home at Old Trafford. Moreover, the only matches since the World Cup that Utd have played against teams in the Top 10 have been Manchester City (see above) and Arsenal. All of the other 13 matches have been against teams, almost exclusively, in the Bottom 5. I started taking notes during the matches, and, although I've excluded notes of potential oddities, have found the following:

HOME V BURNLEY (CHAMPIONSHIP) HOME V NOTTINGHAM FOREST (19TH) AWAY V WOLVERHAMPTON (18TH) (VAR: DARREN ENGLAND) HOME V BOURNEMOUTH (15TH) HOME V EVERTON (19TH) (SUSPECTED FIXED MATCH, SEE ABOVE, VAR: STUART ATTWELL) HOME V CHARLTON ATHLETIC (12TH IN LEAGUE ONE) (UTD WERE THE ONLY TEAM LEFT TO BE DRAWN AGAINST NON-PL OPPOSITION) HOME V MANCHESTER CITY  (NOTE: THIS WAS PERHAPS CITY'S WORST PERFORMANCE FOR YEARS. NONETHELESS UTD ALSO HAD THE OFFICIAL ADVANTAGE AS WELL AS THE HOME ONE)(REFEREE: STUART ATTWELL) AWAY V CRYSTAL PALACE (12TH I BELIEVE) AWAY V ARSENAL  (LOST) HOME V READING (16TH IN CHAMPIONSHIP) HOME V CRYSTAL PALACE (12TH) HOME V LEEDS UNITED (15TH) (DRAW) AWAY V LEEDS UNITED (17TH) AWAY V BARCELONA (THEMSELVES A SHADOW OF THEIR PAST LEVEL) (DRAW) HOME V LEICESTER CITY (14TH)

I'm not very charmed by Wikipedia's failure to represent this as the list that I wrote in the Talk section, instead pushing it all together as a paragraph, so a computer programmer needs to be yelled at, but I hope you can read it anyway, as it's quite revealing.

I'm also not alleging, for a fact at least, that the fixtures have been engineered to support Ten Hag's appointment, but the mass media is *extremely* eager, and consistent in that eagerness, to hype Ten Hag as being on some sort of historic winning streak, and there has been plenty of help from officials like Stuart Attwell to support their narrative. No one seems to have noticed this run of matches that surely plays a gigantic part in contributing, along with the individual brilliance of Rashford and David De Gea of course, to this mainstream narrative. It might be coincidence. Nonetheless, look at the above list, and that is one HELL of a run if you are a new manager wanting to get support for a long-term project. Not "just" the form of their opponents either, but also the Home/Away ratio (which I make after the Leicester match to be 10 to 5).

IN SHORT, AS OF 19/02/23: HOME vs AWAY MATCHES SINCE THE WORLD CUP: HOME: 10   AWAY: 5 ENGLISH OPPONENTS SINCE THE WORLD CUP: TOP 10 PL: 2   BOTTOM 10 AND BELOW: 12

With this already highly suspicious situation, added to the pro-Ten Hag mass media agenda, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest, given the evidence, that Stuart Attwell - and indeed other officials - may be supporting this sequence of events.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.114.165.82 (talk) 17:14, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

City v Wigan
Does this really meet the criteria for inclusion? It wasn't particularly significant or egregious and the decision itself was debatable rather than definitely wrong.

Mrcakey (talk) 10:54, 30 March 2010 (UTC) mrcakey

Arsenal v Bolton
Article states "Later, Attwell kept his red card in his pocket, twice. Once when Bolton's Kevin Davies, who had already received a yellow card for a bad tackle on Jack Wilshere, ...", which is actually incorrect as the Davies tackle on Koscielny occurred prior to the sending off of Cahill. Furthermore, some people believe Gibbs should have been shown a second yellow for a later tackle, so perhaps this should be changed to say that Attwell could have given 3 more sending offs.

- I would add that probably Arsenal vs Bolton should not be there at all, at least not without there being a source to back it up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.235.230.58 (talk) 19:50, 12 September 2010 (UTC) .....

In response -

I was at the game. You're right about the Koscielny challenge, it was before, but the Gibbs issue is by no means clear cut, so can't count. All the other ones were blatant errors. Never before have I heard 60,000 people, both home and away fans, sing "You don't know what you're doing" together. It takes a considerable level of incompetence to alienate both teams with one decision.

You want sources..........

http://www.oleole.com/blogs/arseblog

Sunday, 12 September 10, 09:22 AM

Atwell is completely out of his depth, a midget in the deep end. I can understand both sets of fans and teams being unhappy with him yesterday because he was utterly shit. Remember, this is a man who gave this as a goal. If you're capable of that, regardless of how fledgling your refereeing career is, you have no business officiating Sunday league games, let alone top level football.

...

There's a pic of the Diaby tackle too. Blatant straight red.

This guy makes Graham Poll look like Pierluigi Collina

Worst referee I've ever seen. Do I count as a source? I was there and he was fucking atrocious. Made one mistake, so called the next one wrong to balance it up, realised his error, so called the next one wrong to balance it up, realised his error, so.... Ad infinitum. Well, Ad XC minutes plus stoppage time-um.

Muppet

Arsenal v Wolves
It'll no doubt go unnoticed by many but he has made a howler at the Emirates on 27/12/11 with showing Milijas a straight red for a decent, low studs, ball winning challenge. This is after a yellow for Song despite him doing two red card offences/assaults within three seconds. Too young to referee. Too inept to make decisions. Disgrace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.240.191.79 (talk) 10:52, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Unbalanced
Over 50% of this article is devoted to controversies. While they should certainly be covered, is it really a good idea to devote so much of the article to them? It looks like a violation of WP:UNDUE to me. Alzarian16 (talk) 17:31, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that that's a systemic problem with Wikipedia's articles about certain categories of people, such as financial market traders and football referees. We rightly insist that content should be reliably sourced, but those people attract much more coverage when they get things wrong that when they do their jobs competently. As a Watford fan I have no great love for Stuart Attwell, but can see that some of the content of this article scrapes the barrel a bit too much. The Reading "goal" should certainly stay in (I would say that, wouldn't I?) because it is still regularly discussed two years on, but I'm a bit uneasy with some of the so-called controversies, such as Wigan vs West Ham, which is only sourced to post-match quotes by Steve Bruce. Phil Bridger (talk) 18:15, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Exactly right. I'm a Bolton fan so I don't like him much either at the moment (although Arsenal v Bolton was correctly removed recently), but there are some on there that aren't really that controversial and certainly aren't notable. I would suggest removing Sheffield United v Blackpool, Swansea City v Havant & Waterlooville, Swindon vs Hereford (totally unsourced at present) and possibly Manchester City vs Wigan Athletic, and rewriting and reducing East Midlands Derby and Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Newcastle United. How does that sound? Alzarian16 (talk) 18:36, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure I agree. I haven't checked all the references yet, but in the first Controversies entry Attwell's performance was described as 'bizarre' by the BBC; not something they would normally say, I would have thought. I suspect most of the entries are valid just by the references, although as I say, I haven't been able to check them all yet. The line about 'blatant handball' in the Man City game probably needs to go, unless supported by the reference. I was actually going to put Arsenal v Bolton back in. My referenced entry got taken out and replaced by an unreferenced entry which was then correctly removed. I still believe my referenced entry to have been valid though. The page is unbalanced towards the controversies because he is unable to get through many games without making a strange decision, imo. I haven't read the 'UNDUE' link; I'll look at it now. Five Mile Walk (talk) 19:10, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * After another look, and fwiw, I agree about Sheff Utd v Blackpool, and the unsourced one which has already been removed. Swansea v Havant I'm not so sure about. Man City v Wigan I have just edited but I wouldn't be too bothered if it went. Similarly the Arsenal v Bolton one, where I have put back an old version with references. If that goes too, I'm not too bothered. As a Wolves fan, I hope the Wolves v Newcastle one stays, but agree it needs editing. The text of one of the references was changed, and the reference has dropped out.Five Mile Walk (talk) 20:40, 28 September 2010 (UTC)
 * The sourcing for Arsenal v Bolton may just be sufficient (I've rewritten it a bit to avoid having a really long quote), and you're probably right about Swansea v Havant. Man City v Wigan is much better after the rewrite, so I guess that should be OK too.
 * That said, I still think the controversies are given a little too much precedence in the article. So here's an idea: merge the content into one paragraph per controversy and change them from separate subsections to bullet points. That avoids listing them all in the contents and giving them all bold headers, reducing their dominance of the page without losing the content. I've put a draft in my sandbox - what do others think? Alzarian16 (talk) 11:51, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, it's been four days and no-one's responded yet, so I'm going to be bold and make the change anyway. Feel free to revert me if you don't like it. Alzarian16 (talk) 19:04, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Now the entire section's been removed citing a WP:BLP violation. While I can totally understand that, it appears to go against what the policy actually says: "If an allegation or incident is notable, relevant, and well-documented, it belongs in the article—even if it is negative and the subject dislikes all mention of it." All of them were sourced, so they weren't in breach of the policy. A better approach would be to reduce the amount rather than remove them altogether. Alzarian16 (talk) 20:20, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 1 one external link on Stuart Attwell. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
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Semi-protected edit request on 1 January 2022
154.66.217.200 (talk) 16:57, 1 January 2022 (UTC) Manchester City Fan??
 * Please explain what you want changed. This request isn't clear. — Coolperson177 (t&#124;c) 18:26, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 January 2022 (2)
2A02:768:6704:50D6:A0ED:EFD1:EDA7:C17C (talk) 16:58, 1 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Please explain what you want changed. This request is empty. — Coolperson177 (t&#124;c) 18:26, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 January 2022
Employed by Ethiad group. 24.171.3.93 (talk) 02:48, 2 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 02:51, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

Stupid
Stupid gets paid from clubs 2A02:C7E:C24:7F00:4580:D615:8280:D1FE (talk) 18:18, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Liverpool v Fulham
He should hand in his whistle and resign over that penalty awarded to Liverpool. 88.109.120.250 (talk) 21:47, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2024
Stuart Attwell is a well known professional football referee and is also a big fan of Luton Town FC. Although refereeing at the highest level in English football he enjoyed the promotion party at the end of 22/23 season. 216.205.168.16 (talk) 18:50, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Jamedeus (talk) 18:56, 22 April 2024 (UTC)