Yes, the officials were dire at Villa Park but give me that chaos of errors over joy-robbing VAR every time. If it means football gets its spontaneity back, I’ll live with the blunders, writes OLIVER HOLT

The first time I remember railing against referees, I was 10 years old. It is bred in us early in English football, this contempt and this distrust for officials, and I had my rite of passage like everyone else.

It came in an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Everton in 1977 and I was rooting for Everton because they were the underdogs. Bryan Hamilton scored what would have been a late winner for them but the referee, Clive Thomas, disallowed it. Mr Thomas, who enjoyed the limelight, ruled the goal out for handball. Replays, which the referee could not see, showed clearly that the ball had come off Hamilton’s hip. The tie ended in a draw. Liverpool won the replay. The injustice of it left a mark on me.

That goal, that moment, an entire fan-base being robbed of a trip to Wembley, was one of the reasons why I was in favour of VAR when clubs voted unanimously for it to be introduced into the Premier League in 2019-20. I thought it would end injustices and halt the ceaseless raging against officials in which I was sometimes a participant.

I would have preferred an NFL-style system where coaches are allowed, say, one challenge per half but I still thought VAR would negate advantages held by the big clubs and usher in an age of clear and obvious decisions. Naïve, I know. I have come to repent of my support for VAR since then. Not because of the endless and absurd hand-wringing about a player being offside by a toe-nail – offside is offside, however narrow the margin – but because it has compromised one of the most beautiful parts of the game.   

VAR has stripped spontaneity from the top flight of English football. It has robbed supporters of the instant release of joy and exultation that comes with scoring a goal. It has robbed us of the abandon that is one of the main reasons why many people go to watch football.    

VAR has killed joy. It has made people look foolish for celebrating their team scoring. It has made them watchful. It has made them unsure how long they have to wait before they can celebrate a goal without being worried it is going to be chalked off for an unseen infringement.

The Newcastle players appeal in vain as referee Chris Kavanagh awards a free-kick rather than a penalty

And it has made people hate referees even more than they hated them before. The urge to blame others for our failings is strong and it is stronger in the top flight of English football than it is in many walks of life. Just ask Rodri.

It has also convinced many supporters that everything would be OK if we could just go back to the status quo ante. Just get rid of VAR and we will love football again. Just get rid of VAR and everything will be restored to us and we will be thankful and we will never complain again.

Except we know that isn’t true, either. Aston Villa versus Newcastle United in the FA Cup fourth round was sent to remind us of that. There is no VAR in the FA Cup, which has been hailed as a throwback to when football was heaven. But not on Saturday at Villa Park. Referee Chris Kavanagh and his assistants made a litany of errors. An offside goal that was allowed to stand, a handball that should have been a penalty but was given as a free-kick, a tackle that should have led to a red card but didn’t. The officials racked up a full set.

Here’s a brief look at a few headlines. ‘So poor,’ one said. ‘Complete and utter shambles,’ Shaun Custis and Henry Winter said on talkSport. ‘The worst refereeing in football history,’ a YouTube channel called The Noise said. ‘The officials looked petrified,’ the BBC said, ‘so was Villa Park chaos an advert for VAR?’

No, not really. The Villa Park chaos was just a reminder that to err is human. That’s what happens when you don’t have machines poring over contentious decisions for three minutes during play. This is the way it used to be. This is the way it always was before VAR. It’s just that you’ve forgotten.   

Some still sought to blame VAR for what happened at Villa Park. As if it had become a reflex they couldn’t shake. As if they were trying to pin a crime on someone who wasn’t even in the country when it occurred. They said referees had become too used to having VAR for support. Again, I hate to break it to you, but referees always made mistakes. And they were always pilloried.

The truth is, I’d still take what happened at Villa Park and the mistakes Chris Kavanagh made over VAR. Experience has taught me that. The pursuit of perfection in decision-making in football is a chimera. VAR isn’t going away but I wish it would. What happened at Villa Park hasn’t changed that for me. A referee’s honest mistakes are part of the game. I can accept that more readily now after I’ve seen the damage VAR has done. A referee’s mistake is part of what makes football compelling. It’s like an unkind ricochet or a mishit shot that goes in. Not everything can be controlled. Not everything can be planned.

VAR gets more decisions right but the cost is too high. Give me the chaos of errors at Villa Park every time. If it meant football could get the joy of spontaneity back, I’d take that chaos in a heartbeat.

Digne was also only booked for his dangerous tackle on Newcastle’s Jacob Murphy when with VAR he would probably have seen red 

But VAR has robbed fans of the joy of spontaneous celebration

BREAKING BAD STAR A GOOD ROLE MODEL FOR FOOTBALLERS  

I went to see Arthur Miller’s All My Sons at Wyndham’s Theatre in the West End recently. It is a brilliant play, this was a stunning production and the lead performances by Bryan Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste were breathtakingly good. 

Afterwards, with a little trepidation, I joined a small queue at the stage door to see if I could get a book signed by Cranston for my son, who like me, is a huge fan of Breaking Bad, the television series in which Cranston was the star. 

I say trepidation because I have grown used to seeing many Premier League footballers ignoring supporters when they leave games, hiding behind either sunglasses, headphones or scowls. 

Jean-Baptiste emerged first and went down the line, signing autographs. She thanked every person in the line for coming out to support the theatre. Cranston was the same. This is a man who was the star of one of the most successful TV shows of the last 30 years. He stopped to chat with everyone. He could not have been more charming. 

They were both ambassadors for their profession. The last time I remember seeing a top-flight footballer behaving like that was when Tottenham’s Archie Gray stopped and chatted with Tamworth fans at The Lamb Ground after their FA Cup third-round tie last year. 

It should be the rule in football, rather than the exception. But it isn’t.

Bryan Cranston playing Walter White from Breaking Bad (left) and Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman. Despite his box office standing, Cranston could not have been kinder when signing autographs for fans after a recent West End performance  

I’m bowled over by sports journalist’s unlikely tome   

Sports journalist Neil Squires made an unlikely attempt to become a world champion last year. 

He and three other middle-aged men represented Great Britain in the sport of Molkky – a form of skittles – at the World Cup in Tokyo. 

It did not go particularly well but the book that Neil wrote about it is a clever, funny account of the quest. It’s called The Fall and Rise of the Molkky Bar Kids and I’d buy it for the title alone.