Just got this email thats doing the rounds:
Dear Mr. Warnock,
When the fourth official holds up the board indicating the amount of time to be added on at the end of a game, this is merely an indication of the minimum amount of time to be played. This point is underlined further by the person on the PA system saying "The fourth official has indicated there will be a minimum of four minutes added time."
What "a minimum" means is "there could be more". Hard to understand, isn't it? I'll explain further...
The board does not work in fractions of minutes, merely in whole minutes to give an indication of roughly how much time is left to be played.
Let's say, for example, the fourth official indicates there will be a minimum of four minutes added time. Now, this could mean four minutes exactly, but it could also mean four minutes and 1 second, four minutes and two seconds, four minutes and three sec... (you get my point?), all the way up to four minutes and 59 seconds.
As another example, let's imagine that you have a fat lump of lard playing up front who does little other than kick, elbow and niggle his way through 79 minutes of a game, then takes 35 to 40 seconds to drag his fat backside off the pitch when he's substituted, even stopping to shake the hands of the officials on the way to the dugout, in an attempt to waste time (I know, you're shocked, but believe me it goes on).
Now, the referee may decide to add that 35 seconds on at the end of the game. He may alrady have decided to add on four minutes and 10 seconds on prior to fatboy's antics, but now, thanks to aforementioned lard arse striker, he has to add on four minutes and 50 seconds.
However, as we previously mentioned, the fourth official's board only shows whole minutes, so it still says "4", because that is the minimum, and it isn't over 5 minutes.
So, imagine now that the referee adds on 4 minutes and 50 seconds and, after 4 minutes 35 seconds a goal is scored.
Can you see how the blame should probably be laid at the door of the obese centre forward rather than the referee who has noticed said rotund player trying to cheat and added on the requisite amount of time to cancel out his 'gamesmanship'?
Good. Then we can put that one to bed.
Let me know when you want to move on to discussing pulling a player's shirt off his back in the box and gaining an unfair advantage from handling the ball. I have loads to teach you about those points too.
Kind regards,
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