Green Lions left frustrated as decisions go against them

At the start of the day, 11 places and eight points separated them from Westfield but the home side were more than a match for their visitors.

However, the Green Lions were left to suffer a galling 1-0 defeat with Troy Walters’ penalty kick in injury time at the end of the first half the difference between the sides on the scoreboard.

On the pitch, GFC’s players, management and fans can feel justifiably aggrieved that they got no reward for their efforts.

‘I thought we were excellent,’ said Tony Vance.

‘First half I thought we were really, really good, our second-ball gains were exceptional, the variety of play was really good as well in difficult conditions as well as in difficult circumstances.

‘I thought we were excellent and deserved to be two goals up, not one goal down, simple as that.’

Those ‘difficult circumstances’ was a veiled reference to some questionable officiating that left the hosts frustrated, to say the least.

‘I thought we were better than Westfield and we deserved to win the game,’ Vance said.

‘As for the officials, it’s probably best I don’t comment too much for a couple of reasons. One is I keep getting a letter from some person telling me that I should stop blaming the referees, so I’ve got to be careful of that one, and the other comment is that I’ve always maintained that referees will never cost you a game of football, but today I’m going to take that comment back. There’s four major decisions there that we saw ... that have totally changed the destiny of the game.

‘It was disappointing, really disappointing, because it is what we are talking about now rather than our performance, which was the best at Footes Lane that we have been and we are talking about something that we shouldn’t do.’

• Match report in Monday's Guernsey Press.