Arena Essex 48, Oxford Silver Machine 46: An exciting KO Cup second leg match at Arena Essex last night was reduced to a farce by the referee.

Arena won the tie 94-93 on aggregate.

Leigh AdamsThe tie was on a knife-edge for the first half, but then in heat eight all hell let loose as referee Richard Williams made two poor decisions.

In the first attempt to run the heat, Oxford's Travis McGowan was pushed wide on the first turn by Ronni Pedersen and was left with nowhere to go except the air fence.

Although McGowan was still on the track, it took almost a lap for the race to be stopped and then, amazingly, the Silver Machine rider was excluded from the re-run.

In the second attempt to run the heat, the two home riders attempted to block out Rafal Dobrucki and got into a mess, clattering into each other. Dobrucki became the meat in their sandwich and was knocked off.

The referee again took far too long to stop the heat and once again excluded the innocent Oxford rider, gifting the home side a 5-0 and turning the visitors' two-point lead into a three-point deficit.