Peter Enckelman's howler while playing in the derby for Aston Villa against Birmingham at the start of the season attracted many headlines and received huge publicity.

The incident in question saw a Villa defender throw the ball back to Enckelman who was stood on his six-yard line. The keeper could not pick the ball up otherwise an indirect free kick would have been awarded, so in an attempt to control the ball with his foot, the ball touched his boot and then went past him into the goal so a goal was awarded by the referee.

The Laws of the Game state a goal cannot be scored direct from a throw-in, so as Enckelman had touched the ball with his foot, he was deemed to have scored an own goal.

Similiarly, in a junior game a few years ago a refereeing colleague tells me that an attacking player took a long run up and threw the ball into the goalmouth where it deceived all the players, including the keeper who misjudged the bounce and the ball went directly into the goal without another player touching it.

The referee immediately gave a goal kick to the defending team whilst most of the attacking team were celebrating the 'goal', some setting off on a lap of honour. When the attacking team realised that a goal kick had been awarded, the referee was surrounded by some of the players who protested that a goal should have been awarded.

Even though the correct decision had been made, following this incident the referee's credibility was continually questioned throughout the remainder of the game by the angry attacking team and comments were also directed to him after the final whistle.

This incident illustrates that the unexpected can sometimes happen and when it does the referee has to make a decision that, on many occasions, will not please one of the teams. If players then continue to question the referee's decision during the rest of game there is only one course of action the referee can take, in accordance with the Laws of the Game, and that is the use of yellow and red cards.

* Many thanks to all readers of this column for all the e-mails I have recently received. You can contact me with your comments and match incidents by logging onto the Darlington Referees' Society website, darlingtonreferees.freeserve.co.uk.