“YOU don’t know what you’re doing!”

Hapless referee Matt Eva unwittingly played the leading role – both on and off the pitch – as this relegation matinee descended into farce.

The villain of the piece for applying different rules to almost identical incidents, the official then decided to exit stage left… only to return as a linesman.

For his first trick, Eva produced only a yellow card after Evesham defender Jamal Clarke had hauled down Bash striker Richard Gillespie as he was about to go clear on goal.

The official then left the audience spellbound when he issued a straight red card to Dan Strugnell after deeming the Bash defender had done likewise to Ben Pugh.

His party piece had them rolling in the aisles and arguing in the dugouts when he hobbled off with a calf injury midway through the second half.

However, following a lengthy delay and a comical, but ultimately futile, attempt to find a replacement from the crowd, Eva declared himself fit enough to run the line.

“It was unbelievable!” said Bash boss Steve Riley of the eventful proceedings, which finally drew to a close following a second half lasting a shade over 62 minutes.

Riley had been positively unimpressed with the credentials of the two candidates who had offered to step in for Eva – a member of the Evesham management team and a spectator with a potty mouth.

Just minutes before Eva had succumbed to his injury, the gentleman in question, who was believed to have hailed from Worcestershire, had been heard berating the official with some choice language.

“It was a comical situation and something I had never before experienced,” said Riley. “You can’t just have anybody running the line in a game with so much riding on it.

“It was a strange one and both managers had to agree. They didn’t want to come back on a Tuesday night and, while I didn’t want that either, I had to look after the interests of Bashley Football Club.

“The assessor asked the referee to run the line. He did more running up and down the touchline than he would have on the park and probably could have reffed it from a central position.”

Assessor Alan Nash told the Daily Echo that Bashley could have been fined and deducted points had the match been abandoned, although a local referee said the clash could have continued with just two officials.

Asked for his opinion on the two first-half flashpoints, Riley said he felt Eva had “got them both wrong” and claimed Strugnell and Pugh had merely had a “coming together”.

Cruelly, the biggest cheer of the day from both sets of supporters came when Eva’s demise was announced over the public address system, although one wag was more concerned his golden goal ticket would be rendered useless due to the delay.

There were chances aplenty at both ends with Stewart Kearn saving smartly from Evesham’s Henry Eze in the first half and Gary Middleton’s header nearly winning it for Bash after 90+15 minutes.

Bash: Kearn, Smith, Strugnell, Middleton, Whitley, Casey, Gillespie, Allen, Stokoe, Gamble (Penny, 59), Oliver. Unused subs: Green, Hill, Vokes, Foster.