UNLESS the FA suddenly end the habit of a lifetime and change their mind Harriers hitman James Constable will be watching his team mates from the stands for the next three games with a sense of injustice eating away at his guts.

But the video evidence that chairman Barry Norgrove and the club are banking on persuading the FA to cancel the red card he was shown during Saturday's Blue Square Premier clash is a bit like Marmite and divides opinion.

On the one hand the video evidence is inconclusive. Both Constable and Oxford's 'victim', James Clarke, (who I will get to later) had their backs to the camera, which meant that if there was some skullduggery on either man's part it is hard to see or prove.

It is clear in the footage that the referee had a good view of the incident and that must be the reason why the FA's appeals panel backed up Oliver Langford's decision to show the striker a red card.

But this is football. A sport which is packed with more opinions than a greasy spoon full of builders, where every incident is under more scrutiny than a cash for honours scandal in the Houses of Parliament.

Looking closer at the footage Constable certainly has a case. Clarke looks to have ran into Constable, whose arms appear to be at his side, and then tumbles to the floor as if he was hit in the head by a stray chunk of asteroid.

The 17-year-old rolls on the floor like a Shakespearian actor hamming it up, milking the attention that the spotlight of the incident provided him.

Fouls happen all the time but it has been traditional in English football that the most crunching tackles be accepted grudgingly through clenched teeth that stifled players' cries of pain.

This stalwart ideal has been steadily eroded in the Premier League and it looks as though this new fashion for diving has trickled down to the Blue Square Premier.

Constable may have been sent off without Clarke's rolling about, but the extra embellishment certainly makes the incident look a lot worse than it actually was. If the FA don't back down the knowledge that he was hard done by will be of no help to Harriers' young striker.