Michael OIiver is a human being who made a mistake – Arsenal fans leave him be

It feels like a lifetime ago now, but the memories and images remain so vivid.

A cold winter weekend in Darlington and a mini rugby festival involving clubs from around the north of England. The essence of the occasion was for those taking part to have fun.

We were eight years old, after all. But what transpired was the exact opposite. A scene of violence and carnage no child should ever have to witness, and especially not on a sport's field.

Sandal had reached the semi finals and were drawn to face their biggest rivals Morley. The game was tight and the atmosphere tense, before one of the Morley players was shown a red card for an act of serious foul play.

And then it all happened in a flash. The dismissed player's father, who shall remain nameless, charged onto the pitch with one intention. To cause serious harm to the referee. And he did.

He head butted the official, splitting his nose wide open. The victim of the assault, let's call it grievous bodily harm, fell to the ground, with blood gushing from his face. Both sets of parents converged from opposite sides to engage in a verbal row, which escalated into punches being thrown.

The players from both teams burst into tears. Morley were disqualified, and the RFU launched an investigation which resulted in the assailant being banned from attending rugby games for several years. And what of the referee?

This man, who had a full-time job and was officiating in his spare time because he loved the sport, was treated by paramedics before being taken to hospital. He subsequently died in a road traffic accident a few years later.

I witnessed all of the above and it stuck with me. In fact, ironically, I became friends with one of the opposition players that day and we still remain great pals now, in our middle age. We sometimes reflect on the incident over a beer, and still shake our heads in sadness at the sheer senselessness of it all.

You see, referees were mindless victims of cretinous and unjustified behaviour back then, more than four decades ago. Sound familiar?

Ok, so Michael Oliver hasn't been physically harmed or left in hospital. Modern times thankfully prevent this from happening, but all this means is that Oliver is now the victim of a modern version of the same abuse.

Like having his life threatened on social media by people who have never met him, but take offence to a decision he makes during a football match, before unleashing hell on a referee from the sanctuary of a keyboard.

Oliver is a human being who made a mistake. And if anyone is to blame for the decision to send off Arsenal's Myles Lewis-Skelly in his side's win at Wolves, it is VAR for not overturning a call that was wrong.

Police have launched an investigation, while Oliver and his family are receiving support from his employers. How has it come to this?

Well, the origins of such behaviour started a long, long time ago, as I can testify and while life has changed a lot in the intervening years, one of the saddest facts of all is that some things haven't changed one bit.