At the weekend Gateshead's Captain, Greg Olley was fouled by an opponent early in the match and sustained a broken leg. 

Thankfully medical teams were quick to intervene and Greg was given lengthy treatment on the pitch before being transported to hospital for treatment.

Unfortunately, Greg will be out of action for the rest of the season & will need lengthy rehabilitation before returning sometime next season.

The offending player received a straight Red card for dangerous foul play and will be probably suspended for 3 games.

In my opinion if a player is seriously injured & that injury could be career defining due to serious foul play, the punishment for the offender that was sent off should be harsh.

Not sure how long the suspension in these cases should be, but surely it should be at least a 10 to 15 game suspension.

Incidentally, we saw the treatment that Jodi was getting on Sunday. Referees need to be protecting players much more from constant abuse too.

Thoughts?

You would hope that no professional footballer would deliberately want to break someone’s leg so I think it’s a bit subjective, if a player makes a mis timed tackled and accidentally breaks a players leg then should he be banned for a long time? I’m not sure. 

@Robbie " At the weekend Gateshead's Captain, Greg Olley was fouled by an opponent early in the match and sustained a broken leg."

The opponent should be said...it was Dion Kelly-Evans

 

Greg Olley was a player rumoured that Notts were looking at, whilst in the National League.

If there was another camera angle from the other side of the pitch? Kelly-Evans was covering the ground very fast... so I am slightly unsure whether he was attempting to genuinely play the ball?

If a player goes in to tackle a player & mistimes that tackle or purposely brings the player down & the referee gives a straight red card for serious foul play to the offending player.

If as a result the player tackled is seriously injured, ie broken leg, broken ankle, ligament damage etc, with that player sidelined for a long period of time, the offending player needs a lengthy ban in my opinion.

I think in such cases, the injury cannot be deemed accidental.

dion kelly evans was always pretty wreckless with his challenges even here, its partly why fans seemed to go on about him. he was decent, and worked hard for us but nothing all that special. i think the challenge is sickening, i dont see why he decided to go in for it.

i dont think he did it on purpose, but his speed was dangerous and the decision to try to tackle was poor.

 

 

@liampieI am still unconvinced, given the direction of where the ball ended up, Dion may well have won the ball? Our thoughts are with Olley for a full recovery

I'm not convinced from the camera angle. It looks as though there's a genuine attempt to play the ball but the ball was knocked past as the challenge came in. 

 

Even if players win the ball with a full blooded challenge these days, it's still deemed a foul. A player could win the ball cleanly after going in full blooded but if it causes a leg break, it's automatically seen as a red card offence despite being a great challenge. (not saying that the challenge shown in the video is this but in general)

Serious foul play should be a red card offence but only if there is genuinely an attempt from the challenging player to crunch another with the intentions of wiping them clean out and possibly causing serious injury.

you have to be stupid not to slow down when running that fast, sliding in like that. dion did rash challenges whilst he was here, fouls that looked silly afterwards. i dont believe he did mean to break or injure the gateshead player but he did make a silly decision to fly in. i think if he meant to do it or not is irrelevant, the fact he ran at such pace where you have little control and a lot of momentum is very reckless behaviour.

At the end of the day the offending player didn't have to challenge for the ball. He could have left the player to another one of his teammates, but he chose to run in & put in a rash tackle that resulted in what could be, a career changing injury.

The offending player should be punished severely in my opinion.

It’s a shocking challenge, the way he speeds up and just flies into the challenge. All it took was for the player to make his pass, at which point Dion Kelly-Evans had already committed. He deserves a 10-game suspension for that!

By charging in, Dion Kelly-Evans does himself no favours. It’s a poor challenge. He gave himself little time to change his mind or to pull out. As fouls go that result in broken legs, it’s not as shocking as Roy Keane’s challenge, but it is a terrible tackle. It deserved a straight red. I also think it would be fair to extend the suspension due to dangerous behaviour. To ban him outright is just madness.

The tackles are not the important part now; what matters is wishing the Gateshead player well and a full recovery to playing.

Terrible challenge. There was always the chance that he wouldn’t get the ball. The Gateshead player had plenty of chances to get rid of the ball. He was under little pressure and made the pass well before Kelly Evans flew in.

Injuries like this are saddening to see. I wish Greg Olley all the best with his recovery. Dion Kelly-Evans' challenge is extremely awful. It's a poor decision to go in with a challenge.

I remember a few challenges that Dion Kelly-Evans did whilst at Notts, some which could have easily seen him walk. Since leaving Notts, he's been a bit sulky with his previous teams and now that he's getting minutes with Woking, he commits a stupid challenge like this. It's not good or defendable by any means.

Whilst I did like DKE for his effort, some of our fans cling to him like he was one of our best players, and he simply wasn't.

His defending always seemed limited compared to his ability to go forward. If I had his pace, I wouldn't have slid in. It's not going to end well, he could have injured himself. I get that he's probably trying to retain his place and is just trying to work hard, but it's a poor decision. If a stream roller drove that fast, it wouldn't be permitted on a work site.