CHAIRBOYS PHASE THE CRAZYGANG
(Saturday 17th February 2001)
Wimbledon were left reeling after a controversial decision left them facing a replay at Selhurst Park. With The Dons leading 2-1 Wycombe were awarded an indirect free-kick from just six yards out after a ball had been kicked back to Davis in the 78th minute. Steve Brown blasted in the free-kick but as the ball looked to have been cleared from danger if was planted back in again by Chris Vinnicombe and Brown was lurking to sneak the ball home from close range at the far post. While Wycombe players and fans celebrated, The Dons' players and fans took out their anger out on the match officials as they claimed for offside. TV replays looked to show 'Brownie' in an offside position by the match referee Eddie Wolstenholme told the Match of the Day cameras "My Assistant (Grant Hegley) informed me when the ball was played across, he felt it only went as far as the middle, so in the first phase of play no players could be interfering with play. It's then flicked on a by a defender, so he can't be offside"
Steve Brown and Lawrie Sanchez weren't too concerned on what the replays showed. 'Brownie said "Looking at the monitors I was well offside but in cup games you get that sort of luck. I thought the ref and linesman had made some dodgy decisions..they were caught up in the cup fever today as well. All in all we're happy with a draw, even though we thought the goals conceded were poor by our standards" Commenting on the claims for offside, Sanchez added "I'm not really bothered to be honest, we're in the draw for last eight."
Whatever the replay showed the final score ended 2-2 and it's off to Selhurst Park on Tuesday evening - kick-off 7.45pm. It will be the first return to Selhurst for Sanchez since he left there just over two years ago to join Wycombe "Hopefully they'll be absolutely knackered by then. They've played last Tuesday for two hours against Middlesbrough, they've had a hard game against us today and they've got to play Tuesday night on the bog at Selhurst again. So hopefully that might work in our credit. There's plenty of football left in this cup tie that's for sure"

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