No arguments it had to be a red. You cant jump into a challenge with two feet off the ground. Simple as that!
See the pic above - where are the "two feet off the ground"
My initial thought was he was lucky to get the ball, or he'd be off. Then I was furious with the decision- as it seemed that Racon decided to fall over a couple of seconds after the challenge and roll around, the ref (seemingly about 5 seconds after the tackle) then decided to send him off.
It wasn't the actual challenge I was annoyed with per se, more the dive and huge delay in the ref making his mind up.
But then again, I may have perceived it wrong, need to see it again.. But I thought he got the ball and it was a good challenge!
The way I read the situation was that although Calderon may have been late and relatively high in the tackle, (where has this two footed stuff come from?) the referee had no intention of giving a foul let alone a red card originally, only when he saw the reaction of the Charlton players did he actually begin to make a fuss over the whole incident and proceeded to show the red card. I'll be the first to put my hands up and admit being wrong if it is shown Calderon was two footed but from where I was it certainly didn't look to be that way at all!
In many ways, it was one of the best things that could have happened to us as we were fast asleep for the penalty, and had scarcely woken up since, but as soon as the red was shown we were the better team and didn't look back.
Inigo Calderon fouls Therry Racon for his sending off
http://www.cafctv.co.uk/javaImages/d2/cf/0,,10267~9293778,00.jpg
I can't believe it but I agree with all this. But I wish one of the defenders had gone in that hard in 1st minute and stopped them walking straight through us for the penalty.I know we're all unanimous on Calderon being a great player and a conductor of flair, but tonight I felt he showed total stupidity that may well have cost us the chance to win the game. Having just gone 1-0 down, the last thing we needed was a player sent off. And it was a red card, in fact I doubt you'll rarely see a more obvious one. It was off the ground, it was over the ball and it was two-footed. A totally ludicrous and moronic thing to do. Still, the twats at the end of the north stand gave him a round of applause.
Block tackle for me all the way, I had a great view of it from where I was sitting in J block. What is interesting is the reaction (of rather non-reaction) from the Charlton players after the tackle (watch the highlights for proof). Not one of them protested, rather were watching the ball. Then the ref went mad and you just KNEW he was going to pull out the red card.
But we were superb last night, and Charlton were very poor.
What a shame common sense no longer seems to play a role in refereeing. It was the sort of challenge that sometimes - not always gets a red card these days. However, as the first big challenge of a very important match for both sides and given that Calde clearly took all of the ball and didn't touch the player at all, it's a shame the ref felt the need to spoil the match by being so quick with a red card. Some officials (i.e. good ones) even nowadays would exercise more discretion and use a yellow card and a very stern warning to both sides that tackling like that would not be tolerated, never mind how pumped up the players were. Instead we get the flamboyant 'look at me' red and a potentially great game instantly ruined.