Mark Shaw's anger over officiating at Brigg still hasn't subsided

Mark Shaw has had 48 hours to reflect on Worksop Town's 2-2 draw at Brigg on Saturday, but his anger has not subsided.
Worksop Town manager, Mark Shaw.Worksop Town manager, Mark Shaw.
Worksop Town manager, Mark Shaw.

The Tigers boss is still furious about some controversial decisions, and disappointed that his side weren’t clinical enough.

But despite the severity of the blow to Worksop’s NCEL Premier title chances, Shaw isn’t willing to call time on the title race just yet.

Looking back at the weekend game, he said: “I’m still livid. I don’t want to talk about the referee because it will probably get me into trouble. He was inconsistent and made poor judgement calls for both teams.

“He gave them a penalty in the first three minutes that was never a penalty, so we were playing catch up from the beginning.

The result was met with criticism on social media by supporters, and handed further advantage to title rivals Tadcaster Albion and Handsworth Parramore, who both won on Saturday.

But Shaw wasn’t convinced it was that bad a display: “As daft as it sounds, we had extremely good chances to win the game, the performance wasn’t as bad as people are probably making out.

“We didn’t take our one-on-one chances.

“They score a worldy from a mistake on our part, Brigg had experienced Evo-Stik players. They’re fighting for survival and I thought we did alright in places. We controlled the game, second half we were a hell of a lot better than the first.

“We had enough chances to win two games.

“Wardy had a good chance, Woolley had a good chance, Ofosu had a good chamce.

“If the refereeing performance hadn’t been so bad we’d probably have been able to concentrate on winning the game.”

Much of the post game debate was centered around Kyle Jordan being dropped to the bench.

Shaw said the league’s leading goalscorer hadn’t been at his best in the previous game, and opted to go with the strikers who found the net against Retford United.

“He was poor Wednesday and I told him so,” said the manager.

“We want goals. People who scored, they started.

“Andy and Mitch got a chance, they created some bits and pieces but we weren’t at full flow like we were against Garforth.

“Kyle was on the bench because he wasn’t good on Wednesday night. He’s got to perform every game.

“You can’t be top goalscorer in the league and just perform when it’s going your way.

“He wants to produce, but he dips in and out of form.”

Ahead of a midweek visit to Staveley, Shaw is keen to keep his side focused on picking up victories, rather than getting too wrapped up in the title race and the mathematical possibilities.

“The title race is still wide open, people have still got to play each other,” he said.

“We just need to look at ourselves, get on a run that will cause other teams problems.

“At the moment we’re up down and around, we need to get some form.”

But he’s still finding it hard to attract new faces to the club, having lost the likes of midfielder Tom Elliott.

“We’re facing the same problems, people don’t want to come and drop to this level, no matter how much money you put in front of them in a realistic manner.

“They want to play Evo-Stik, Conference North. It’s the reason we’re losing Tom Elliott.”

Shaw also addressed unhappiness in certain sections of the fanbase that the players hadn’t gone en masse to show their appreciation for Saturday’s travelling support.

“There’s a lot of frustration among the players, at each other. We go from one extreme to another.

“We’re trying to keep them focused and our message to the players is that we want to win games because it’s important, because we want to win something.

“There were a lot of heated exchanges with the referee, we were all a bit flustered.

“To make a big deal of not coming to the supporters once is a little unfair, considering we do.

“Over the last two years we’ve even gone and shook supporters hands, so I feel the comments are a little unjust.

“People making those comments need to think about what they say before ranting off about what should and shouldn’t happen.”