Footage proves 'invisible goal' should have stood, says Peterborough United boss Darren Ferguson
Peterborough United believe they possess footage that clearly shows that they were wrongly denied a first half equaliser in Saturday’s FA Cup first round victory at Newport County.
Thankfully it turned out to make little difference to the game. At the time of the controversial incident, Posh were trailing 2-1 after they had conceded twice in the opening eight minutes before Abraham Odoh had scored his first goal for the club to reduce the deficit.
Fans, players and coaching staff alike were left confused as Jack Sparkes swung in a corner in the closing stages of the first half. The ball appeared to be headed by a Newport player and then ended up in the back of the net.
There was a pause as Posh’s players didn’t initially celebrate ,but they eventually raced off to the corner flag after seeing where the ball had ended up only to be stopped by referee Stephen Martin. He ran over to consult with his linesman and eventually ruled out the goal.
There was speculation that the ball had been headed out of play and had crept in underneath the bottom of the netting.
Ground staff worked on both nets during the half-time break, but following the match Ferguson referred to the incident as ‘the invisible goal’ and said that the club has footage that clearly shows a goal should have been awarded.
The silver lining for Posh is that Joel Randall did equalise for Posh in the second half and Ricky-Jade Jones completed the turnaround with two late goals.
Ferguson said: “It’s a goal. The footage has showed that clearly. There’s good coverage of it to show it’s a goal. I think I was the same as everyone in the stadium as it was a bit surreal and everyone sort of stopped like someone had pressed the pause button. Then we started celebrating.
"I don’t think the ref knew what to do and the linesman didn’t help him and he’s made a human error. He’s said it’s gone in the side of the net, but it’s clearly a goal. If we’d have lost 2-1, it would have been talked about a lot more but I wouldn’t have used it as an excuse for why we lost the game. We would have lost the game because of the way we defended in the first eight minutes.”