Swindon boss Holloway angered by Luton's second chance in 'tarnished' Vertu Trophy
Holloway makes his feeling clear on EFL decision
An angry Swindon Town boss Ian Holloway believes the Vertu Trophy is now ‘tarnished’ after his side were kicked out of it last week and vehemently feels Plymouth Argyle should get a bye to the semi-final at the expense of Luton Town.
The Hatters were reinstated into the competition on Friday after the Robins were removed by the EFL for fielding two ineligible players during their 2-1 victory at Kenilworth Road back in January. On a controversial evening, firstly, Swindon played midfielder Ollie Clarke, despite the fact he was in the middle of a seven match ban, believing their club captain was available for matches in that tournament. Then, striker Aaron Drinan came on at half time, although he hadn’t been included on the official teamsheet, with Ryan Tafazolli named instead, with the game stopped on the hour mark as the officials realised exactly what was going on.
After the match was eventually concluded, an FA ruling saw Clarke hit with another one game ban and fined £1,000 fine, but with the EFL finally getting their act together to make a decision on Friday, they opted to eject the League Two club and replace them with Jack Wilshere’s side, the Hatters now hosting fellow third tier team Plymouth Argyle in a quarter-final tie scheduled for Tuesday, February 24.
With the final played at Wembley on Sunday, April 12, Luton are now three games away from potentially winning a competition that they have done so once before, back in 2009, but Holloway doesn’t think Town should get the opportunity to progress, as speaking to BBC Wiltshire, he said: “It was my most embarrassing day in football. English football is my life, always has been always will be and I think I’ve carried the flag with passion, with a love of the game.
"Sometimes I’ve let it go over the top, but I understand I’m marmite, I don't expect to be liked by everybody, I don't really care, that is what it is, but I am not having anybody tell me what I can say now, ever. The systems that are sometimes used to decide these things, they should focus on why and what happened and not who did that and I believe that the tournament now is tarnished.
"I can prove why we didn't do it deliberately, nothing was deliberate, we are now not allowed through and the people who lost the game are put through, has that ever happened before? No. I think Plymouth should get a free game through to the semi-final. If I’m Luton, I wouldn’t want to play after we’ve lost, whatever happened there? So do I agree and do I accept what they've done and how they've done it? I’m going to have to, that’s what happens in football, but did I agree with it? They will never get me to agree with it, not in a million years.
"I'm embarrassed for the Swindon fans. I will now wish Luton all the very best in the next round, but do I truthfully think they should be there? No I don’t. For me it's so bad that what doesn't make sense is you've lost in a cup competition which is a knockout competition and you still get put through. If I’m Plymouth, I’m not happy with that. What if they go on to win it? What does that do the competition?”
One of Holloway’s main gripes is the way in which the teamsheets are now submitted before a game, as he criticised the Wifi available at Kenilworth Road for causing them issues as well, continuing: “In my 46 years of being in this wonderful game, that Tuesday night was probably the worst I’ve ever see. It was a total calamity of errors, with the new initiative being forced this year that has led to the teamsheet being wrong and my club secretary has been completely and utterly in my opinion, thrown under the bus.
"There’s failsafes there with the old system where I physically write down my team, there’s a new initiative brought in this season that we go digital, I don't do that, my IT lads do that. We got ours right on the socials, but the one we got wrong was a typing error as my club secretary accidentally hit the wrong button. Not all football grounds are equipped with good enough technical stuff to pick up emails and internet all the time.
"If you go to that (new system), every ground has to change. Luton's online, you can look at it, they were having trouble with theirs. They were having trouble, so the old system would have worked a treat. My team had two people that should not have technically been on there. The teamsheet thing I can prove is not my fault, I didn't cheat, it wasn't checked. It's not who, who, who are we aiming it at, it should be what went wrong, why it went wrong and reasons to change it for the future.
"You cannot have Luton supporters turning up, Swindon supporters turning up to a game of such importance and your administration team and the referees and the FA bear the brunt of it because it was a mistake. Let’s make sure everyone carries the can and the whole thing has been looked at in the wrong light. Luton made sure at the end of the game that the referee left the building with both sets of teams written down just to prove their point. Why wasn't he given that at the start so everything would have been fine?
"And to top that, because words are really important to me, I was told that in the meeting, I wasn't in it, Anthony my club secretary was, he said, somebody said your manager showed no remorse. Now I’m saying remorse means I’m deeply sorry for what I’ve caused. Why would I have to show remorse? I could have solved this. I offered to take Aaron off, I did what I could do, everything was above board, but there were mistakes made. I’ve got no problem with that, but what about everyone else, where are you? The portal you admitted there was a problem but you still then gave my player another ban.
"I haven’t done anything as a football manager to cheat. My sub was there, completely and utterly with his kit on, so when we put him in at half time and he was allowed to come, I have never seen such a shambles in my life. Then the game stops for eight minutes when the referee, the fourth official and the linesman have it pointed out by their bench, ‘oh he’s not on the teamsheet.’ It’s my most embarrassing thing, never have I seen such calamity.”
Despite Holloway’s outbursts following the match, which have gone viral on the internet, Town manager Wilshere felt it was the ‘right decision’ made by the EFL, which was backed up by chief executive Gary Sweet too, as in his programme notes on Saturday, he wrote: “We now have another opportunity to continue to build our home form courtesy of Wednesday’s anticipated and highly expected EFL disciplinary decision falling in our favour which revealed that Swindon had been removed from the Vertu Trophy. This came as a result of them fielding not one, but two players who either were not named on the official matchday team-sheet or should have been serving a seven-match suspension and it was an inevitability that we would progress to a quarter-final at home to Plymouth.”