DAVE Artell wants more to be done to encourage footballers to become referees when their careers are over.

The Crewe skipper has no complaints about sitting out tomorrow's visit of Accrington Stanley (3pm) after he was on the receiving end of one of two red cards handed out by Darren Sheldrake, pictured below, at Barnet last week.

But he believes referees would stand a better chance of making the correct call on contentious challenges if they got themselves closer to the training grounds.

"I think they should be assigned to a league club and have to go in and watch players training," he said.

"The refs would then understand why players tackle the way they do. It would help them make better decisions on what constitutes a poor tackle."

Artell has been busy preparing for life outside of football by studying forensic science at graduate and postgraduate levels.

But he cannot recall receiving any careers guidance from the Professional Footballers' Association, the players' union, about qualifying as a referee.

Former Bradford and Chesterfield defender Steve Baines is one of the few ex-professionals to dish out bookings rather than receiving them after he was promoted to the Football League's list in 1995 following his retirement.

"No-one has ever said to me, 'Why don't you become a referee rather than a plumber or joiner?' but I think ex-players would make very good referees," added Artell.

And Artell accepts he would have been reaching for his red card at Underhill, where he wasn't alone in misjudging his tackling to Crewe's cost.

After he brought down Izale McLeod to concede the penalty which set Barnet on their way to a 2-0 victory, his central defensive partner, Adam Dugdale, also earned a straight red for a late lunge on Ricky Holmes.

The misdemeanours took Crewe's red-card tally to five for the season with Nick Powell (Shrewsbury), Ashley Westwood (Colchester) and Shaun Miller (Crawley) also walking early.

But Artell noted: "Five years ago the sort of challenges Duggie, Nick and Westy made wouldn't have got them sent off.

"It's a sign of the times, but you can't do those tackles any more."

"Duggie (Dugdale) and I have just got to take it on the chin. We haven't got any excuses and we'll pick ourselves up."

Both defenders have apologised to their team-mates for aiding and abetting their side's first defeat in four games.

And Artell is convinced they can recover from their absence and return to winning ways against Stanley.

"The lads have got to get back on track without us. I'm sure they can put in a performance without us. They still put in a tremendous effort at Barnet, which showed how hard we've been working in training.

"The tempo has gone up and that was reflected in that even with nine men for a long period last Saturday the effort was equivalent to that of 11.

"We had a good little run and now we need to start another.

"But Accrington had a great result against Gillingham last week, a 4-3 win, and are in good form.

"It will be interesting to see how they do in the next couple of weeks without John Coleman."

Coleman was Accrington manager for 13 years before quitting last month to join League One Rochdale.

Caretaker boss Leam Richardson will be in charge tomorrow.

Crewe Alex: Davis wants return to winning ways

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