consider where the lino would have been at the moment the Crewe player passed the ball forward. He would have been level with the last Blackpool defender.
a difficulty for any lino is that they can’t look along the back line and look to see the moment that a player plays a long ball forward, when the ball is played from the ‘near side’ of the pitch, at exactly the same time. In an empty stadium they can usually ‘hear’ the point of contact as they look along the line of offside
If he has determined that the player was onside at the point that the ball was played, his next action is to follow play towards the goal-line to be in the best position possible to judge what happens next.
you say that the Lino was ‘miles behind play’ but so were the blackpool defenders, because the Crewe player had timed his run to perfection and by his forward momentum had given himself a head start on the defenders (and the Lino)
as for the claim of handball, the linesman was no more than a few yards from the action looking straight at the attacker as he controlled the ball. you were ‘sitting’ behind the camera position on the far side of the pitch, even further behind play, calling handball on a player who had his back to you. You also support Blackpool.
Despite all of this, you may be right and the lino may have been wrong tho’ I seriously doubt it