Larry Ryan: Clear and obvious that VAR can't organise a conspiracy

Rather than evidence of a plot, the sleuths found chaos in Stockley Park, a tragic scene in many ways, as panic took hold, confusion reigned

CHECK ONGOING: Now-retired referee Andre Marriner consults the pitchside monitor for a VAR check earlier in the year. Pic: Glyn Kirk/AFP

Humanity was dealt a considerable boost, you’d like to think, by events in the Stockley Park VAR dungeon last Saturday evening. Or at least by the publication of the audio from that dungeon in the days that followed. Plenty more people might now realise they have been hugely overestimating society’s ability to organise conspiracies. And they might relax a small bit.

This had been the most sought-after audio since Nixon’s tapes, or the famous episode of Larry Gogan’s Just a Minute Quiz when a contestant answered that the Taj Mahal was opposite the dental hospital.