Stuart McCall has vowed not to become a serial referee-basher.

But the City chief admits it is hard to stay cool after the two red cards that have blighted the last two home games.

Paul Heckingbottom was sent off by first-year official Ray Lee in the Stockport game on Saturday, trudging off in the footsteps of Guylain Ndumbu-Nsungu, who got his marching orders against Chester a fortnight earlier.

"I've been getting a bit frustrated on the bench recently but only when I saw two really poor decisions," said a frustrated McCall. "Hecky's was even worse than what happened with G.

"The Stockport boy pushed the ball past and then ran into him. It was a foul but if you give a yellow card for that, we'd end up playing two-a-side football.

"It wasn't a case of lunging in and there was nothing premeditated. Hecky had done nothing sly.

"The linesman flagged like mad for a pull of the shirt and the referee said it was a trip. But it was neither because the lad just ran into him - it was never a booking.

"I didn't like what that turned me into. For the last 30 minutes I was complaining about everything because I was that frustrated.

"I would be the first to have a go at my own players discipline-wise but both the dismissals we've had were an absolute joke."

Managers have to fill in official reports to rate refereeing performances after every game and McCall is one of the more generous contributors.

"I probably give higher marks than most - and certainly treble what Neil Warnock used to," he added.

"Some managers just put down zero and have a pop about everything but I try to give positive feedback.

"I'm certainly not going to become a manager that whinges all the time because referees have got a really tough job.

"But this week I would like to think that the assessor will sit down with the referee to look at the incident again and then ask whether his opinion has changed.

"I'm sure he'll admit to being far too hasty - although that doesn't help us now.

"It's so frustrating that Hecky is now going to miss a cup game for doing absolutely nothing."

McCall spoke to Lee afterwards, but only to question why he had tacked on an extra minute of added time.

"It was the smug way the referee had said that he'd changed his mind from playing four more minutes to five.

"He said we'd taken too long over a goal-kick but that was nonsense because Donovan (Ricketts) had to clear a plastic bottle that had been thrown on.

"I'm not just pointing the blame at the referee for Saturday because we made mistakes first half. I tried a system that didn't work but it had done a good job against Chester.

"We changed at half-time and put a plan in motion. But it doesn't have the chance to get off the ground before we're hit by another really poor decision."

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