Ever since that fateful afternoon Brentford fans have vilified the referee, Ray Bigger, so I thought that I would try and get his side of the story. He is now working in Singapore as managing director of an architectural practice and when I tracked him down he was happy to talk and totally unrepentant about his actions:
“The irony of it was when I was driving home from the game I was listening to a Brentford supporter who called in to a radio phone-in show in order to vent about my timekeeping. The talk show host told him ‘I was at the match and I thought that the referee was absolutely correct as Brentford were slowing the game down.’ There were a lot of timewasting tactics from Brentford as soon as they went ahead and I made it very clear to their players during the remainder of the second half by tapping my watch whenever I thought they were timewasting so they knew that if they kept this up we would be out here all night. I also remember that there were some injuries in the second half. Referees cannot win and are criticized if they do add on time and equally so when they don’t. As we left the ground for the first time ever in my refereeing career a home fan got a bit bolshie and he started mouthing off at me, so one of my linesman who was extremely tall stepped in and said ‘do you have a problem?’ and he quickly backed off. I had also refereed a friendly a few years previously when Phil Holder was playing for Crystal Palace against Croydon Amateurs and sent him off so I am sure that he does not have happy memories of me, although at the time I did not have a clue that he was the Brentford manager! Ironically before the end of normal time I stopped play for an injury and a home fan started shouting at me and saying that he could have done a better job than me and, stupidly, I held out my whistle and offered it to him. Maybe Brentford fans wish that he had taken up my invitation!”
2-0 at Barnsley 
