NEWCASTLE boss Dean Richards insisted Tom Penny was the innocent party in the eye-gouging incident.
“Tom is distraught as he didn’t think anything was deliberate,” Richards said. “His leg was trapped by Jimmy Gopperth and he tried to release it three times, couldn’t and as he’s stumbling away he pushes Gopperth’s head down, he catches his face and Jimmy makes a meal out of it.
“If there is contact with the eye it wasn’t deliberate and sometimes you have to Callum Chick - Newcastle look at who the protagonist is, and it is clearly Gopperth. Why should Tom’s be culpable for being trapped in a ...