Dartford goalkeeper Craig King banned for three games after red card following final whistle against Ebbsfleet United
Published: 06:00, 08 January 2021
Keeper Craig King will miss Dartford’s next three games after his seeing red last Saturday.
The Darts stopper was shown a red card after the final whistle by referee Richie Watkins after clashing with Ebbsfleet forward Reece Grant.
The incident came just moments after Grant was fortunate to escape a red card when he left his foot in on the keeper, who had came out to claim a through ball, in stoppage time.
“He’s got a three-match ban,” confirmed Dartford manager Steve King. “It is what it is. The referee has seen something that I haven’t in his report, then that’s the end of it for me.
“I’ve seen the (initial) incident back, it’s on the website, it’s out there, and it’s a red card. The officials came in with this line where it’s either reckless or dangerous – one of them is a red card and one isn’t.
“But when you kick someone in the head and they are on the floor, there’s only one outcome and it’s not a good one. How is that a yellow card? It’s a red card. He’s followed through and kicked him in the head. Whatever happened afterwards was probably a backlash of him being kicked in the head.”
Despite boss King’s understanding, he could not condone his keeper’s reactions after the final whistle.
“It’s not acceptable from my point of view and we’ve dealt with that internally,” said the Darts boss.
“It’s not acceptable what Craig did after. But to be kicked in the head and say you know what that’s just a yellow card is poor officiating but for me (the referee) was poor all game.
“It took 72 minutes for a yellow card for one of their players for a foul. We should have had two penalties and the offside goal wasn’t even offside either. All those decisions were made by the referee and I think he was really poor.”
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Matthew Panting