Dermot Gallagher refereed our games and he was a Villa fan.
Didn't he controversially send off Oakes at Blackburn for handling outside the box when it was well inside?
For me the two worst for decisions against us were Halsley obviously (in his autobio he was amusingly going on about players conning him for penalties "And I was conned by Young who dived against Villla....and I was conned by Jay Rodriguez who dived....also against Villa!)
Ellerey years back was also awful.
People like Uriah Rennie were just incompetent for both teams.
Tbh half the refs nowadays I don't have a clue who they are or what they looked like, don't know the difference between a Kevin Freind or a Keith Stroud.
I do find it bizarre they gave him the Spurs game thinking no one would pick up on his birthplace being Leicester!
That was him. he said to me that villa fans had never forgiven for him but that it was actually the linesman that flagged for it so he had no choice. I said that Villa fans probably didn't even remember him being the ref. Well, apart from soccer hq.
In fairness he was a decent ref. I actually remember on Sky they showed him in the crowd watching Republic of Ireland at a world cup or euro championships, no idea which club he supported really.
I can remember the 90s refs really well....
Graham Poll- Well he made some high profile cock ups but a prominent ref.
Paul Durkin- Very good ref.
Steve Dunn- Massively fat.
Paul Alcock- ALways known for that hilarious stumble when Di Canio pushed him.
Uriah Rennie- what a clown. Still hilarious that he sent Shearer off though.
Steve Bennett- Always seemed to take great delight in letting everyone know he'd called a throw in correctly. When it should've been a corner.
Howard Webb- Good ref, unlucky the media started to dig up every little error he made when he started getting more high profile. Sounds like a good bloke aswell.
Ellerey- Awful.
Jeff Winter- My least favourite. His final game was at Anfield and in his autobio (yes he did really write one and no I didn't buy it) he genuinely said at the final whistle the Kop stood for longer clapping the team off and he suspected it might be for him.....
There was another ref who was certainly a Villa fan, he was featured in the Claret and Blue mag at Bodymoor Heath, Mike Reed I think?
The modern day refs apart from Clatternburg and Mike Dean, I couldn't pick any out in an I.D parade tbh, they're a bit more featureless than the 90s lot.
