Football finds a new nemesis, but will goal line technology actually benefit the fans game? Spurs fans might disagree

Everybody needs a nemesis. Sherlock Holmes has Dr Moriaty, Top Cat has Officer Dibble, Boris Johnson has Ken Livingstone and seemingly English football has decided that the lack of goal-line technology is its greatest opponent.

This was emphasised by the weekend’s cup semi-final between Spurs and Chelsea, which found domestic football once again seeking retribution for another goal-mouth injustice.

And with reason, as from whatever angle Juan Mata’s 49th minute effort is viewed it’s impossible to definitively conclude that the whole ball did actually cross the line.

The national side experienced a similar fate in the 2010 World Cup when Frank Lampard’s effort against Germany was ruled out, despite replays showing that it was in by a matter of feet.

Video evidence in that instance would have drawn England level and could have distinctly changed the outcome of the game.

As a result, the English media have been clamouring for video evidence ever since in an effort to seek retribution for the wrongs of these decisions.

This is seemingly an evil that is blighting the game and the sooner it’s dispatched to the darkest depths of Mordor the better for the game. Apparently.

Cameras have been touted as the answer to the games current ill that will without question cure what currently ails it and even Alex Horne, general secretary of the FA is behind the idea. He tooted importantly: “We expect to pass goal-line technology into the laws of the game.”

However, little opposition has been put forward to question whether it will actually benefit the spectacle that we all flock to see. The drama of watching men punt a ball towards a big net and the excitement that this prompts from fans, both on the day and in the intervening days until the next match.

Admittedly, it will certainly give the game a consistency and an exact answer on those debatable goal line decisions, but is clinical certainty needed?

This equilibrium is being painted as an essential requirement of the modern game, but as a fan I relish the fact that the game could be won or lost at the hands of human error; in the same way many games are on a cold Sunday morning.

The fact that little man with whistle is allowed to make mistakes – just as players are – adds to both the drama and the almost tactile nature of the game that is so familiar to us all. And if the referee is perceived to slip-up, he too can be fed to the dogs in the crowd, just as the players are if they put a foot wrong.

This sense of gladiatorial, Shakespearian, soap-opera drama – call it what you will – only serves to add to the thrill and tension of a game.

The beach ball that deflected in Darren Bent’s shot against Liverpool, the ghost goal of the FA Cup semi-final and Lampard’s World Cup strike are all still excitedly discussed topics that help keep the drama of the 90 minutes going on long beyond the final whistle.

Admittedly, none of these incidents were fair, but add video technology to the mixer and this discourse is gone.

The drama of the game will naturally remain if the technology is in fact introduced, but it’ll be missing an element of the performance, as if act two, scene two, in Macbeth was stricken from the records.

And its place will be a clinical THX 1138 gloss, a layer of magnolia emulsion that varnishes over the game that we all play.

Tags: Chelsea, goal-line technology, Juan Mata, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur