Wolves fan plucked from crowd to take on fourth official duties

A Wolverhampton Wanderers fan struggled to contain his joy when his team scored a late winner in Tuesday’s FA Cup tie against Brentford after he had stepped forward from the crowd to take over fourth official duties when an assistant referee fell ill.

Ross Bennett, a referee at youth level, said he had volunteered to help when the assistant could not continue in extra time.

“I had the referee asking if I’d do the fourth officiating, and I was like: ‘If you give me a quick crash course, I will’,” Bennett told the Wolves Express podcast.

“So for the next 30 minutes of my life, I was officiating a FA Cup replay match; it was quite surreal, really, crazy.”

Bennett said he was “screaming” inside when Wolves scored from the penalty spot in extra time to win the match 3-2, setting up a fourth round encounter with West Bromwich Albion.

“The killer was not being able to celebrate the third goal because I’ll be going to the West Brom game and I couldn’t celebrate the goal that took us there because I didn’t know if I was allowed to or if I had to stay neutral,” he added.