The Refereeing Thread

[Nocturnal Submission]

Some top improvisation here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/49209240

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Question carried over from the VAR thread:

Genuine question for refs/officials : does it become easier to officiate when one team is 3-0 up, as the game doesn't turn on your next decision? And if in some way you are more relaxed about the reaction your decision will generate, do you feel your decisions are better or worse?

[DPDPDPDP]

Some top improvisation here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/49209240

Imp - I think this is something you should try with maybe a different instrument for each match. Start off light with maybe a triangle, then maybe progress to a tambourine, then trumpet, French horn. I think you might have trouble keeping up with play whilst lugging a cello around the pitch.

[Nocturnal Submission]

I'd pay good money to watch a match referreed by an official with a kazoo.

[Wouter D]

Sousaphone.

[Sean of the Shed]

[imp]

Question carried over from the VAR thread:
Genuine question for refs/officials : does it become easier to officiate when one team is 3-0 up, as the game doesn't turn on your next decision? And if in some way you are more relaxed about the reaction your decision will generate, do you feel your decisions are better or worse?

I definitely become more relaxed when it's a one-sided game, but you still have to pay attention. Especially in youth games, a losing team will often start fouling like fuck out of frustration. Sometimes if it's a really intense, feisty game and the score's close, I'll secretly wish for either team to break away by a couple of goals to take the sting out of it.

To the second part of your question - I don't think it makes any difference. I've got to the stage now where I think I make mostly the right calls on fouls and offside. It's game management that's the biggest challenge.

Speaking of which, those of you who read about The Game From Hell on my blog last May might, or might not, want to take a gander at the eight-minute highlight reel on YouTube. The coach I ordered off has now been banned, though I don't know for how long. I found the clip by chance when googling his name to see if he was still going to be coaching this season. At the end of the game when he returned to the field, among his numerous insults, he warned me that the video would prove him right about... fuck knows what. The video highlights the goals and very few of the fouls and aggro, but the amateur commentator does back my decisions at least.

Might keep a spare kazoo in my pocket from now on. Though I found out today I got a promotion and can now referee Kreisoberliga, which is level 8 and the highest level with a one-man refereeing team. That's the glass ceiling for a 54-year-old geezer, unless I can be bothered to do the AR course - but I can't. I talked with another ref about it at my club and he said, "Yeah, you get to drive with two 18-year-old ARs to a game, and conversation's really hard." This bloke's in his late 20s. I can just see me, "So, lads, what's top of the German hit parade right now?"

[imp]

No sooner do I post about how I'm feeling confident that I now generally make the right calls than I spend Sunday afternoon thinking the exact opposite - new blog post, 'When 22 moaning men shatter your confidence'

[seand]

I definitely become more relaxed when it's a one-sided game, but you still have to pay attention. Especially in youth games, a losing team will often start fouling like fuck out of frustration. Sometimes if it's a really intense, feisty game and the score's close, I'll secretly wish for either team to break away by a couple of goals to take the sting out of it.

To the second part of your question - I don't think it makes any difference. I've got to the stage now where I think I make mostly the right calls on fouls and offside. It's game management that's the biggest challenge.

Speaking of which, those of you who read about The Game From Hell on my blog last May might, or might not, want to take a gander at the eight-minute highlight reel on YouTube. The coach I ordered off has now been banned, though I don't know for how long. I found the clip by chance when googling his name to see if he was still going to be coaching this season. At the end of the game when he returned to the field, among his numerous insults, he warned me that the video would prove him right about... fuck knows what. The video highlights the goals and very few of the fouls and aggro, but the amateur commentator does back my decisions at least.

Might keep a spare kazoo in my pocket from now on. Though I found out today I got a promotion and can now referee Kreisoberliga, which is level 8 and the highest level with a one-man refereeing team. That's the glass ceiling for a 54-year-old geezer, unless I can be bothered to do the AR course - but I can't. I talked with another ref about it at my club and he said, "Yeah, you get to drive with two 18-year-old ARs to a game, and conversation's really hard." This bloke's in his late 20s. I can just see me, "So, lads, what's top of the German hit parade right now?"

There's an overwhelming mass of world-weary pathos in the highlighted phrase.

[DPDPDPDP]

Imp, what about a vuvuzela for anyone who commits dissent. A good blast in the ears on that should deafen the loudmouth git and hopefully keep him quiet for the rest of the match.

[imp]

Not sure that would fit in my pocket! Blowing the whistle with real fury can be just as effective.

seand - I hadn't noticed the contradiction in that phrase. The proverbial gang of one. There's also an upside to being on your own, though - a certain 'fuck it, I'm in charge here so I can whatever the fuck I want'. As I learnt from an excellent ref on my very first training course in the US ten years ago (I've cited him on the blog before too), "You are judge, jury and executioner".

[imp]

Just a bog standard weekend of fouls, fighting and dissent in the Frankfurt youth and amateur leagues. Still chuckling at the away player's response to me sending him off (it's in the headline).

[imp]

Another long night of fouls and philosophy out on the field, with this thought-provoking question posed by the away team's centre back: "Excuse me, kind sir, but why is your refereeing so shit tonight?"

[treibeis]

Another long night of fouls and philosophy out on the field, with this thought-provoking question posed by the away team's centre back: "Excuse me, kind sir, but why is your refereeing so shit tonight?"

At my regulars' team's match last weekend, one of the subs got red-carded for telling the (very young) referee that he ought to hang up his whistle and go to Confirmation classes instead.

I'd have called that a "throwaway comment" rather than an insult (although the referee may have been a Catholic or of some other faith, I suppose).

[imp]

Depends a lot on the tone, but with young referees - especially given the recruitment crisis (numbers down for 80,000 registered refs in Germany to 58,000 over the past few years) - I'm all for zero-tolerance for wankers making comments like that.

[treibeis]

Depends a lot on the tone, but with young referees - especially given the recruitment crisis (numbers down for 80,000 registered refs in Germany to 58,000 over the past few years) - I'm all for zero-tolerance for wankers making comments like that.

I agree, but the referee had already red-carded both coaches and three outfield players, after less than an hour, all for dissent. I know the home coach and most of the home players. They're not the sort to shoot their mouth off. I think, in this case, the referee really had lost it.

[imp]

No doubt, but you have to wonder how much brains the lad making the comment had, with three players already red-carded for dissent...

The lad who got the yellow-red card last night - his first yellow was for booting the ball far away at an opposition throw-in - something that annoys the fuck out of me. When I carded him, he couldn't believe it. "What was that for?" How can you be playing football at a fairly decent level and be so utterly clueless about the rules?

[treibeis]

No doubt, but you have to wonder how much brains the lad making the comment had, with three players already red-carded for dissent...

True. Then again, I've always wondered why anybody gets booked/sent off for dissent. Not because I think insulting referees is good, but because I've never felt any urge to commit dissent myself. I was obviously not an "emotional player" or a "mentality monster" or any of the other badges of honour that are awarded to certain players these days.

As our Games teacher once pointed out, no referee is going to change his decision simply because you've just told him to fuck off.

[Simon G]

I was sent off for dissent when I was 13. I'd been fouled by the keeper when through on goal and the ref didn't give a free-kick - it was outside the area. I managed to get up but by then the defence had recovered and cleared the ball. Without thinking I turned to the ref (who happened to be our manager at the time - youth football in 90s England) and yelled "How hard do you want him to hit me you effing pr**k?!" Immediate red card and I learnt then that you can't beat the man.

Sometimes the emotion does just take over - the team I played for were getting beat by 10 goals every week and it was 0-0 quite late in the game against our local "rivals". Had I scored we'd have gone ahead in what would have been only our second win that season. Fortunately we ended up scoring in the last minute from a corner and won 1-0 so my teammates didn't hold a grudge. The manager didn't pick me to start for the next two games though.

It still rankles with me now, almost as much as the lad who broke my collarbone when I was through to score the winning try in our inter-tutor games when I was 15.

Oddly enough, I'm so laid back when it comes to football now that I don't even get on refs and assistant's backs at Cheltenham games, instead telling those around me that, more often than not, the official is correct.

[Janik]

True. Then again, I've always wondered why anybody gets booked/sent off for dissent.

Well, it's often because they believe they have been hard done by. And are by nature competitive people who are desperate to win (sport, obviously, has disproportionately many of these by it's very nature), so get red mists over things that reduce their chances in what they perceive is an unfair manner.

From a Hockey perspective where start times are staggered across Saturday's, it's both possible and common to play and umpire. The nightmare teams often turn out to be ones with a significant number of Umps in! These players not only believe you are wrong in your call, they are very confident that their opinion is better than yours and could indeed be justified in thinking that. It makes the "Well, do you want the whistle then?!?" rhetorical question hard if there is a potential answer is "Sorry, can't, I'm doing a Premier Division game later". For example, one of the most difficult players to Umpire came from a club from the fens. He was notorious amongst our Umpires. One day I was playing away at their place, and there he was whistle in hand. And f*ck me, he was a good ump. Exceptional, in fact. Eyes like lasers, total command of the more esoteric rules.* A bit of an "Oh" moment regarding our previous interactions where he was arguing about my decisions.
* - but even someone really good can make the occasional, critical, error. Which he did in this game to the determent of his own club.

Getting players to referee themselves is often portrayed as a panacea for Football. The idea is that putting them on the other end and they will gain empathy they currently lack and their behaviour will improve. I can say it doesn't necessarily work like that!


Oh, and big Football crowd behaviour is important as well. The general culture around Football is that abusing the ref is OK. Rather than laughing along with individual or sometimes banks of fans "letting off steam at a weekend" we should call out the behaviour of fans doing this for the toxic mass bullying that it is. Many of those lower tier players that imp deals with will be fans of big clubs. They are simply doing what is completely acceptable for them to do at the Waldstadion, not perceiving a difference. Expecting respect to start at the touchline is pointless, it won't ever work like that.

[Furtho]

The local league I follow most closely, the Spartan South Midlands League, has been participating in the FA's trial of punishing dissent with ten minutes in a sinbin instead of a yellow card. In August 2018 there were 102 cautions for dissent in 125 matches across the divisions of the league. In August this year there were 41 sinbin cautions in 124 matches. The SSML are interpreting these figures as meaning there has been an improvement in player behaviour.

[Janik]

Yeah, that is questionable isn't it? It could equally be that refs, aware that a player will be sent from the field if they book him, are implementing a higher bar for what it takes to yellow card someone for dissent.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Not related to football, but definitely related to the treatment of referees. Controversial GAA pundit Joe Brolly has been basically fired for absolutely fucking hammering the ref at half time in the all ireland final. Now he had the willing assistance of Ciaran Whelan, but Joe Brolly's camel only needed one more straw. Essentially Dublin's best defender was sent off after 25 minutes for essentially committing the same bookable foul on the same player three times in 10 minutes. Ciaran whelan was against it because He was there to represent Dublin, and he was a violent shitbag, who as a player was a great man for the shitty cheap shot, Joe Brolly seemed outraged that the referee would send someone off so early on his big day, and that the last one wasn't even a foul. They really went for him. The thing that did for Brolly was that he said that maybe the ref had been effected by some of the pre match kerry propaganda.

Unfortunately most of the rest of the country thought the ref had a really good game, and that the dublin player essentially gave the ref little choice, and what hope does a referee have if he can do everything right, and still have people hammer him on television. So the obvious solution is that television has to change. Joe Brolly has been replaced for the replay by the former mayo manager Stephen Rochford, and Ciaran Whelan has been reminded that there is no shortage of recently retired, articulate former Dublin players, who actually won an all ireland or two, and he should watch his step.

[Simon G]

I've often thought that if refs explained some of their decisions, or even held their hands up on a bad one, then they wouldn't get as much grief as they do.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Well the ref in this case said that it was for repeated tactical fouling, and that he had warned the player after the second one. Most people went fair enough, and it completely cut the legs from under the two lads. I don't know if he would necessarily have explained it, if there hadn't been such controversy .