Farsley Celtic 2 Altrincham 2

A FEISTY and entertaining FA Trophy tie was marred by a highly-controversial incident on the hour mark that robbed Farsley Celtic of a perfectly good goal.

The Celts had home advantage over Vanarama National North counterparts Altrincham in the first round of the competition and they were 2-1 down when Nathan Cartman controlled a square pass from Dave Syers and sidestepped the Robins’ keeper Tony Thompson to slot in.

Referee Richard Aspinall awarded the goal amid protests from the visitors’ defence and the ball was placed on the centre circle. Both teams were lined up for the restart but it had to be delayed as both benches were remonstrating, the referee spoke to the managers, his assistant and the fourth official before eventually disallowing the goal.

Aspinall restarted the game with an uncontested dropped ball which gave possession to Alty keeper Thompson amid a chorus of ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ from both sets of supporters.

It was a bizarre incident and it led to a minimum of six minutes of added on time, during which Farsley came close to winning the tie as a Syers half volley looked destined for the back of the net until it bounced and the spin took it just wide of the post.

Syers had levelled the tie in the 75th minute while Jimmy Spencer had struck the home side’s first equaliser after Altrincham had taken the lead in both halves. Jordan Hulme bagged a brace, scoring in the second minute and the 56th with his second coming from a mistake by Celts keeper Elliott Wynne.

The outcome means that the teams will meet again in a replay on Tuesday night at the J Davidson Stadium at Moss Lane.

Farsley boss Adam Lakeland was far from happy, he said: “I’ve spoken to four different people now and I still don’t know what happened out there.

“The referee said he felt a buzz on his arm so he blew his whistle, but one glimpse at the liner (assistant referee) would have told him there was nothing wrong with the goal.

“Carts (Cartman) is four yards onside and it’s just embarrassing, embarrassing, but he (the referee) will pick his money up, and he’ll get another game next week, and then some other unfortunate club will be the victims of his next wrong call.

“It means we’ve got go over there (Altrincham) on Tuesday and they’ll be massive favourites now but we could have won the tie here, we should have won it. I thought we deserved to win and our players were magnificent, I can’t fault them at all in fact the way they put the incident behind them and still came back at Altrincham to equalise and almost get a winner was a credit to them, other teams might have folded.

“We were slightly the better team today, and the pitch was a leveller. They are a very good side, a passing side, but this pitch doesn't help that game. We’ll play better at their place but so will they.”

Altrincham manager Phil Parkinson said: “It was a bizarre incident and it spoiled a good game between two sides that wanted to play, despite the conditions, that hailstorm and the pitch cutting up and becoming so heavy.

“The ref got it wrong, he made a mistake and we all do that. He blew his whistle and our players stopped so he couldn’t give the goal but he didn’t know that, it was the fourth official (Melissa Burgin) who realised and told him.

“That’s why he restarted with a dropped ball and I know the crowd didn’t know what was going on but it was all he could do. He apologised but it was a bad one and I can see why they (Farsley) feel aggrieved about it.

“But it’s back to our place and we spoke about that before the game. We knew it would be a tough game against these and we said to the players, if we couldn’t win today, let’s get them back to ours. We’ve done the first part but we’ve got to make sure we complete the job on Tuesday.”