THERE was a very unusual offside decision in the FA Cup match between Solihull Moors and Blackpool last Friday evening, which got ex-footballer turned pundit, Matthew Upson, in a right pickle over the offside law.

So what happened?

A corner was awarded to Solihull and the corner-taker kicked the ball to a team-mate a few yards back from the corner.

As he did this, the Blackpool defenders on the goal line, moved outwards leaving the corner-taker in an offside position.

The second Solihull player did not kick the ball, he merely stopped it with his foot.

The corner-taker ran from his offside position and crossed the ball beautifully into the Blackpool penalty area, where another team-mate headed it perfectly into the goal.

The referee immediately signalled no goal and the attention was switched to the assistant referee, who was flagging for offside.

Everyone was confused.

The player scoring could not have been offside as he came in through a mass of players to head the ball home.

It then became clear the offender was the player who had crossed the ball.

‘The ball wasn’t kicked forward’, was Upton’s first uttered thought, ‘so he could not be offside’.

His next protestation against the offside decision was the ball hadn’t been kicked at all, merely stopped.

The Offside Law (Law 11) does not state the ball has to be kicked forward.

In fact, had the second Solihull player played the ball backwards, and the corner-taker played it, he would still have been given offside.

Again the Law does not require the ball to be kicked; it says an offside player is penalised for becoming involved in active play by touching or playing the ball, passed or touched by a teammate.

So touching the ball by stopping it was enough.

To give the BBC credit, after the match Alex Scott, their excellent woman ex-player turned pundit, said it was an unusual offside and the assistant referee should be praised for spotting it and getting it right.