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Faversham joint-manager Phil Miles has called for more consistency in the standard of officiating across non-league football.
Town lost 4-3 at home to VCD in Bostik South East on Saturday to drop to 17th in the table.
While refusing to ignore his side’s poor display, Miles made note of an emerging trend in regards to poor refereeing decisions.
He said: “It was a funny game, the weather spoiled it a bit as it did for most games on Saturday and the referee was poor once again.
“She gave a really soft penalty against us, the ball comes out the sky and is flying about and hits Charlie (Owen) on the shoulder.
“There’s not really any VCD shirts around him and she’s given a penalty and booked him straight afterwards. It’s not an intentional handball.
“You watch the video and you clearly see the ball has hit his shoulder and rolled down his arm. There was not another person in that ground that thought it was a handball.
“I also thought we had a couple of penalty shouts which the referee turned down.
“The officiating is really poor in this league, but the referee wasn’t the reason we lost the game. If we’d have conceded the penalty (which VCD missed)we, as a young team could have folded and gone on to lose by eight or nine.
“Another time the ball came off one of us for a corner and the referee and linesman have given a goal-kick. Everyone could see it was a corner.
“VCD manager Keith McMahon recently did something quite publicly to try and raise money to get these officials some support.
“At the end of the day it is what it is, but because we’re in this position it matters more.
“I’ve tried to stay away from mentioning it but it is a running occurrence.”
McMahon started a campaign in January with a view to the Football Association investing money in providing more training for referees at that level of the game.
Miles said: “I’ll be part of it if they say they’re going to do something to improve it.
“You’re looking for a bit of consistency, most of the managers in our league are UEFA B level and some are UEFA A, so you just expect a little bit more quality.
“I really don’t want to get bogged down with officials but it is definitely something managers talk about.”
Having been left with a depleted squad at the weekend, Faversham are again set to be missing familiar faces for Saturday’s trip to Guernsey.
Miles added: “ We had five missing, which obviously we knew about but it was disappointing as we knew it would be hard for us.
“Dave Cook is back but we’ve still got four missing at the weekend.
“Liam King and Dan Carrington are still injured, Danny Walder is still suspended, Ben Chapman has gone back to Gillingham.”
Multiple absences have subsequently handed opportunities to teenagers Rolando Onu and William Risdon, the former of whom scored at the weekend.
“I have to give a mention to Rolando, his goal at the end was probably the highlight of the day for me. I was made up for him and really pleased to see Will get to come on and play.
“Our aim is to start bringing these youngsters through next year.”
Guernsey, in 18th place, are just three points behind the Lilywhites with a game in hand.
Miles admitted: “It makes the game even bigger now. It’s the biggest cliche but it’s a six-pointer.”
