The Refereeing Thread

[treibeis]

I've given up on pre-match discussions, they don't make any more difference than a fucking Respect armband

I'm surprised you ever bothered, to be honest.

I've only ever refereed about half a dozen games, all in friendly tournaments for a good cause. (I'm not a qualified referee, of course, but each team had to provide a referee for at least two games.) The first one was on the worst pitch I've ever played on - cinder, but granite-hard and strewn with potholes - so before kick-off, I said to the teams, "Look, I've played on this pitch several times and there's always been broken collarbones, broken wrists, concussion and Christ knows what, so try not to go unnecessarily steaming into tackles, OK?"

Quick as a flash, one of the goalkeepers - playing for the national newspaper that had organised the tournament - piped up with, "If the ball's there, I'm going for it." This wouldn't have been so bad, had he not prefixed it by repeating my last sentence in the cod-British accent that certain Germans think is a) accurate and b) hilarious.

Gratifyingly, he got booted in the face "going for a ball that was there."

[imp]

There are almost no cinder pitches left in Frankfurt now, they've all been replaced by artificial turf. I don't miss them - they're either like you describe, or they flood after an hour of rain. The grass fields are used very sparingly. Outside of town, though, I nearly always ref on grass.

[treibeis]

There are almost no cinder pitches left in Frankfurt now, they've all been replaced by artificial turf. I don't miss them - they're either like you describe, or they flood after an hour of rain. The grass fields are used very sparingly. Outside of town, though, I nearly always ref on grass.

Same here. The club I used to watch (and play for) -Teutonia 05 - only ever remained in the sixth tier because they played on cinder. At 10:45 hrs. on Sunday. Never lost a home game, as their opponents didn't know what cinder was.

Now they have a big-shot sponsor, are in the Regionalliga, play somewhere else, train in Schleswig-Holstein and can fuck off.

[imp]

Regionalliga? Fourth division sell-outs! I bet they have a club accountant and everything, the capitalist pig-dogs.

[treibeis]

Regionalliga? Fourth division sell-outs! I bet they have a club accountant and everything, the capitalist pig-dogs.

They do indeed. And the accountant reckons nobody gets more than 500 euros a month. Or so he told me.

Fuck off. The coach is Dietmar Hirsch. Just, fuck off.

[imp]

Rather than focusing on last weekend's now almost routine verbal abuse and violent conduct (summarised at the end), this week's blog post tries to decide if I was right to change my penalty call to a direct free-kick instead. Are body language and skid marks on the grass an adequate substitute for VAR?

Nearly time for the winter break - just one game on each of the coming three weekends, then we should be done until February. Given the depressing weather and the general mood out on the pitch, plus the overall neglect of anti-Covid practice, I'm more than ready for it.

[elguapo4]

A friend of mine had a similar experience when he used to referee.

The attacker broke clear, and the keeper came out and dived at his feet. He blew for a penalty just as the attacker got up and started chasing the loose ball without appealing, with the keepers reaction persuaded him that he probably got it wrong.

Unlike you, he decided to stick with his original decision, but thought to himself " they're retaking this if they score "and luckily enough, an attacking player encroached way into the area.

When they missed the second effort, he said that he nearly joined in the celebrations himself.

[imp]

Ha ha, there are so many times when you pray for outcomes like that to prevent a shitstorm. Like when a defender screams for offside, stands there with his arm in the air, you let play continue, then the attacker misses. You still get yelled at by the defender, but not as much as if the ball had gone in.

I really wanted the free-kick to go in, and it was very well taken, but the damned goalkeeper pulled off a great one-handed diving save to his right.

[Simon G]

I had to give my first sending off last night.

It wasn't an official match or anything, we had training and did a mini-tournament incorporating the u10s with our u11s team creating 4 teams of 7, so three 15 minute games each. In the second game one of my u11s punched an u10 in the stomach for absolutely no reason whatsoever, which led me to telling him to get off and he'll miss the rest of the game - then having to tell his dad why I'd just had to send him off.

I'm just glad it was his dad and not his mum there because the dad took it for what it was and gave him the bollocking he deserved. The mum would have insisted the u10 did something to warrant it - despite the fact I saw the whole thing.

[imp]

I was supposed to be reffing down in the Odenwald region this weekend, but there's a 7-day Covid incidence of 600 plus, so the leagues there wound up early for Christmas. I was given another level 8 game near Darmstadt, but they followed suit and that game was called off too. Looking forward to a free Sunday, I was rewarded instead at 7.30pm on Saturday with a level 11 game in Frankfurt at a club where things have not gone well on previous visits. In fact the same player who yelled at me that my reffing was shit and then - after his red card - threw his shirt in my face, was in the home team's starting line-up. But it went okay in the end and I enjoyed the game - this week's blog post is a short guide to instant conflict management.

[imp]

Referee Tales blog and myself cited in this Washington Post column today about abuse of referees and the recruitment crisis in refereeing.

[ad hoc]

Good to see

(mind you i did a double take when reading that a California dad went and sacked the soccer ref. How did hi manage that, I thought, and then realised they must mean sacked like in American football, not as in fired. )

[Janik]

I had to give my first sending off last night.

It wasn't an official match or anything, we had training and did a mini-tournament incorporating the u10s with our u11s team creating 4 teams of 7, so three 15 minute games each. In the second game one of my u11s punched an u10 in the stomach for absolutely no reason whatsoever, which led me to telling him to get off and he'll miss the rest of the game - then having to tell his dad why I'd just had to send him off.

I'm just glad it was his dad and not his mum there because the dad took it for what it was and gave him the bollocking he deserved. The mum would have insisted the u10 did something to warrant it - despite the fact I saw the whole thing.

In sudden, probably out-of-character flashes of rage news, I wonder what this young Lady's parents said to her when she came home from the her Hockey game (probably her last Hockey game for quite a while!)? And whether this changed when they saw the Facebook video of what actually happened?

This vid is doing the meme rounds in Hockey circles at the moment precisely because you just don't see this in girls games. It is pretty rare even in the adult male.

Actually, I came this close to showing my first ever red card on Saturday just gone... and that was also to a butter-wouldn't-melt young woman. A butter-wouldn't-melt young woman with a worrying tendency to put both hands into the middle of opponents backs and give them a hard shove... and an apparent inability to stop doing this even after getting one yellow card for sending an opponent sprawling with a blatant example, so she was really risking another and a red.

[Janik]

The reaction of stick-swingy-girls teammate to walk up and smack her on the, er, back with a stick for her idiocy is sort of understandable... and also maybe not the wisest in the circumstances.

[imp]

Latest blog post - even on a quiet weekend (two games, just five yellow cards) there's a certain level of shite behaviour.

[treibeis]

Not a single player on either team offers me a hand-bump or a thank you at the end of the 90 minutes.

I remember when I used to watch ex-Fräulein treibeis's son playing junior football. I never, ever told him to do anything - except shake hands with his opponents and thank the referee. And he was the only one who did it.

[imp]

Good for him (and for you for telling him). The first thing I did when I got the U16 team here to myself was to instil this into them. You could tell no previous coach had ever mentioned it.

[imp]

Three weeks ago I wrote a long disciplinary report about three players on a U17 team who had just screamed at me and insulted me after the final whistle of a game they'd lost (but had expected to win). Their coach is a fellow referee, who did nothing to stop them, and neither did he apologise to me. Their next game was this past weekend - all three players started that game. That is, none of them were banned/punished for even a single game. So I've withdrawn my services from all future U17 and U19 games in protest.

I've also discovered that some referees basically sell themselves to clubs. The clubs need to have a certain number of refs on their books (dependent on how many teams they run), otherwise their mens' teams face a points deduction. So some refs get paid between €300 and €500 a year by these clubs just to be on their books, and do the absolute minimum of 12 games so the clubs can avoid a points deduction.

This city's amateur football culture is fucked up in so many ways, and no one's doing a fucking thing about it. At the bottom end, getting pissed upon and laughed at, lies the idiot referee.

[imp]

The Worcestershire FA's got the right idea: one player here gets banned for seven and a half years for going face-to-face with the ref. Sorry to sound like an authoritarian nutjob, but this is what it's going to take to start cleaning up the amateur game.

[Simon G]

This is the second statement this season I've seen posted by the Worcestershire FA (my u11s play in the Evesham league so it's affiliated to them), and people have the audacity to complain about the lack of refs coming through.

[imp]

Last blog post of the year - I'm currently boycotting U19 and U17 games, and working with other refs on a manifesto for change.

[Foot of Astaire's]

Good for you. I find it shocking that you didn't even get a response to your report, let alone some support from the league. Hopefully, someone there will sit up and take notice now.

I was put off refereeing 11 a side games from my experiences refereeing in a 5 a side league. Too often I'd be going home after some pretty horrific abuse or the odd threat and like after any row, I'd be going over it in my head and cursing myself for not responding or handling it better. It was a huge relief when I finally gave it up.

[imp]

Had a call from my reffing boss last night - he was just on his way back from the latest disciplinary panel meeting. They hadn't seen my report, because the league's administrator hadn't bothered forwarding it. Supposedly it'll come to the court in January and I'll be invited to testify.

On a happier note, he'd gone to the hearing because of a U19 coach who'd followed a referee to the car park and threatened him. The coach got a three-year ban - that's from coaching, playing, or even being allowed to show up at a sports ground.

[Guy Profumo]

Superb response from Epsom and Ewell here.


https://twitter.com/Ollie_Bayliss/st...84755722387458


Minor fracas breaks out at Dorking Wanderers Reserves and Epsom and Ewell

Match abandoned

[danielmak]

In many leagues the ref wears a watch that shares info. if the ball has cross the line. I would like to see the ref's watch display on the scoreboard. I hate seeing these performances where the ref holds up his wrist, tapping the watch when a keeper is delaying the re-start or acting like they are looking at the watch in some meaningful way while a player fakes injury. Sync the watch to the game clock on the scoreboard and stop the watch, which stops the clock. That would be great. I know that only applies to professional leagues but I still want to see this happen.

My other great hope (and maybe those of you who ref could tell me if this is a possibility): Let's say a player fakes injury for 2 minutes late in a game. I want to see the ref tell the player right away: "However long it takes you to get off the field is how long I am going to wait until you are allowed back on the field." Is this do-able? As far as I know the ref controls the flow of players on and off; there's nothing in the laws of the game to prevent such a move, no? I think this would be a wonderful aid in removing some time wasting late in games.