Gary Johnson has escaped punishment in the form of a touchline ban for the foreseeable future after being sent to the stands in their 3-2 defeat at Mansfield last weekend.
The Cheltenham manager described the incident from his point of view in his pre-Barnet press conference on Thursday, he said:
“I was in the technical area talking to, well shouting at the player because I thought he was trying to get a fellow professional sent off, in my own opinion and then I turned around and two, burly angry people were coming towards me and well into my technical area.”
Johnson then elaborated on the incident and implied that his sending off was harsh given the circumstances.
He said: “It was all happening and when somebody encroaches in your space, your technical area, you can’t just stand there.
“It wasn’t an aggressive, it was a little push and unless my push is harder than anyone else’s you don’t don’t need to take three steps back and throw your arms around over a little push but that’s another thing.
“I’ve probably said too much but there you go.”
As it turns out, he hadn’t said too much. He also mentioned that he knew the assessor for the incident on the day and that the fact he knew him might make them realise that the incident wasn’t in his nature to do this.
He claimed: “I’ve got a lot of respect for the assessor on the day so I’m hoping because there’s no footage of the incident and I’m hoping that he’s seen what’s gone on.”
Johnson also appeared to imply that the officials didn’t see much and both the decision to send him to the stands, and the incident which led to Danny Wright’s dismissal, were both potentially ill-advised.
He said: “The fourth official didn’t feel it was worth sending me off because he said ‘Gary doesn’t get involved’.
“It was the linesman that got involved with myself and with the Danny Wright situation.
“He was the only one that thought, other than their technical area of course, felt that we’d done anything wrong. We actually got the free kick on Danny’s one.”
