It's not every day your manager is sent off for rugby tackling a pitch invader dressed in a mankini - but that's exactly what happened to Dorchester Town on Monday night.
Player/boss Ashley Vickers, 38, was shown a straight red card for hauling down the Borat impersonator in his side's Conference South clash at Havant & Waterlooville.
With the game finely poised at 1-1 after 70 minutes, the former Sheffield United man was bizarrely dismissed before assistant boss Phil Simkin and assistant kitman Dan Fuge were also sent from the dugout for their protests.
Dorchester, who have only won twice since the turn of the year, went on to lose the game 3-1 after two of their defenders Jake Smeeton and Kyle Critchell were also sent for an early bath as the ill-tempered clash descended into farce.
'I'm dumbfounded and speechless. A guy ran on to the pitch without any of the stewards getting near him and I thought I was doing them a favour,' Vickers said.
'My only thought was to get hold him so we could get on with the game. I managed to grab him and bring him to the ground and the funny thing was the stewards actually thanked me for it.
'But the ref decided to send me off and it beggars belief. Their players told the ref not to send me off and their chairman even offered to take a player off to even things up.
'The ref lost the game after that and he knew he had made a great error by the reaction of Havant's players and management. In hindsight I perhaps shouldn't have done it but hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'm sure people will crucify me for this but I have broad shoulders.'
Ex-Referee Graham Poll says: 'This clip probably validates the question "Who'd be a referee?"
'The law doesn't stipulate who you need to act in a violent manner towards - just that you have acted in a violent manner. And yet, didn't the player just speed up the process of removing the idiot who decided to mess about?
'The reaction of the players following the red cards proves how they feel. But the advice to players - when police and stewards are present - must be this: let them do their jobs and concentrate on doing yours.'
Taken From The Daily Mail
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