From: roberto@oliveb.ATC.Olivetti.Com (Roberto Ricca)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.soccer
Subject: Re: Premature termination of a game.
Date: 31 Jul 92 18:46:42 GMT
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino CA, USA

In article <oeSHhBe00W08Q=_1Bp@andrew.cmu.edu> sc4n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Saverio Cittadini) writes:
>I remember two cases that happened in the Italian "Serie B", on which 
>people argued a lot.
>The first happened in the 70's; the game was Catanzaro-Novara and the
>home team was leading 3-0 with less than 30 minutes to go, when a 
>linesman got injured. The referee started looking for someone to take 
>his place, and photographer presented himself as an authorized referee
>for amateur games, showing his I.D.; both teams agreed to the substitution,
>the game continued and ended 3-0. But then it turned out that the guy 
>who had replaced the linesman had been suspended by the Federation months
>before, and was not authorized anymore. Novara pointed this out, and the
>League decided for a replay of the game, which ended 1-1.

No, Saverio, it's the other way around. The first game ended 1-1 (don't
know the score when the linesman got his injury). It was a good result
for Novara, but they messed things in a following home game and in their
desperate need of a second point in order to get closer to promotion,
they protested the game and the game was replayed.  Catanzaro won 3-0.

Verona enjoyed the whole thing very much. Thanks to the extra-point
Catanzaro got with that replayed game, the two teams were tied for
third place (the last one good for a promotion) at the end of the
championship. A playoff game was forced for the promotion to serie
A (however Verona won, 2-0, I seem to remember).

>The second happened in the 80's; in the game Parma-Bari, which the home
>team was leading 3-0, the referee called the game when - according to
>everyone else - there were still 5 minutes to play. In the locker room,
>Bari pointed this out to the referee, who suddenly realized that his watch
>was indeed wrong, and that there were still 5 minutes to play. But 
>meanwhile it had got dark, and a thick fog had fallen on the stadium,
>thus there was no chance to resume play. The referee reported the events
>this way, and despite Parma's complaints, the League decided for a replay
>(many pointed out that the Federation president and the Bari president
>were - and still are - brothers, but that's another story...). Anyway,
>Parma won the replay 1-0 and everything calmed down.

I remember things in a different way. The game was suspended because
of fog with just three minutes to go. Parma was offended because
with such a big lead and so little amount of time still to be played,
a suspension was going to deprive them of a deserved and improbable
victory (they were in last place, Bari in first. BTW, how things change!)

However, in his report, the referee said that because of a previous
four-minute suspension in the game (or maybe his evaluation of injury
time), there were still seven minutes to be played, so a suspension
was not so unreasonable.

I also seem to remember that everybody felt Bary was a protected team,
but not for the reason you wrote, I think that Antonio Matarrese (our
Federation current president) was, at that time, the president of Bari
and of the Italian League (or maybe he was expected to become soon
League president). Vincenzo (Matarrese), his brother, took over later.

However I wouldn't bet my home on the last paragraph.

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