Southend United’s National League match against Boreham Wood saw the ball in play for only 36 MINUTES, as fans slam ‘disgraceful’ timewasting.
Boreham Wood defeated Southend United 1-0 in the National League.
Fans complained because the ball was Boreham Wood only in play for 36 minutes.
Some have even proposed incorporating a rugby-style’stop the clock’ system into football.
Ian Ladyman of Sportsmail has written about Premier League timewasting.

Southend's National League match against Boreham Wood lasted only 36 MINUTES.
Southend’s National League match against Boreham Wood lasted only 36 MINUTES.

Last weekend, time-wasting reached new heights as the ball was only in play for 36 minutes during Southend United’s 1-0 loss to Boreham Wood.

 

This comes after Ian Ladyman of Sportsmail wrote about ‘endemic cheating and time-wasting’ in English football, which is ‘getting worse.’

He also mentioned the overuse of substitutions for potentially non-tactical reasons, pointing out that 27 changes were made in the final five minutes of games last weekend in the Premier League.

Southend was defeated 1-0 by Boreham Wood in a game that lasted only 36 minutes.

Chris Phillips, a reporter for the Southend Echo, tweeted his displeasure with the lack of open play in the National League match.

Fans reacted quickly, calling the apparent time-wasting “disgraceful” and saying they’d “never heard of such a low figure.”

Others called the lack of playtime “disgraceful” and demanded the implementation of a rugby-style “stop the clock” rule.

Some fans have called for drastic measures to prevent time waste from worsening.

One advocated for a similar system in which games were’reduced to 60 minutes.’

The Southend manager felt the same way. ‘The ball was in play for 36 minutes of the match, and it was disappointing we couldn’t build up a real head of steam,’ he said after the game.

‘It was the first game of the season, and we deserved to win.’

The loss of a player made things even more erratic and difficult to get into a rhythm.

It was disappointing that we didn’t create more clear-cut opportunities, but we knew it would be stop-start.

‘It was the first game, and we need to focus on Saturday at Solihull.’

‘Everyone was disappointed when they came in on Monday, and no one likes to lose, but they’ve been very good this week,’ says the coach.



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