The Refereeing Thread

[My Name Is Ian]

He's definitely wrong on two. It's handball. Seen that loads of times before. Perhaps the referee had a moment's brain fog where he got it mixed up in his head from times when a whistle blows on another pitch and somebody catches the ball in error because they think it's blown on their pitch. I've seen that result in a drop-ball in Sunday league before, mostly without complaint. (It may not be the correct rules, but on a Sunday morning certain tolerances used to still be allowed for.)

[elguapo4]

I'm still bitter from a game in my younger days. I was in goal, and we'd battled back from two early goals to trail 2.1 with 10 minutes left.

The opposition got a free kick wide on the right, and the ref walked away. He wasn't looking at the kicker, so the ball was well on it's way before he blew his whistle. Our centre back unopposed, caught the ball and put it down to take the expected free kick, for a foul or offside. But no, penalty! Cue redfaced ref muttering " no I didn't " to our howls of protest that he blew in the air. Lost 3.1.

[treibeis]

"As long as that continues, this blog will be updated on an occasional basis only, which is surely a relief to us all."

No, not to "us all". Now, of course I don't want you being verbally and physically abused or being even more miserable than you are anyway, but can't you pretend that shitty things are happening and then blog about them? I mean, it's not as though you've never written any made-up stuff before.

[Hot Pepsi]

This is where goal difference is a real hindrance as it means the size of the score plays a much greater part in how Football standings are figured out compared to North American sports where the ranking of the team is really just down to the number of wins, regardless of their size. Introduce a slaughter rule and then hear the (actually fairly legitimate) complaints from the team who had a game curtailed at 60 minutes when they were winning 10-0, and then missed out on the title by +2 goal difference to a team that got to play the full 90 against the same rubbish opposition (but only scored 9 nevertheless). A slaughter rule can't be realistically introduced in a balanced league where every team plays every other over the same length of playing time because complete comparability is the central aim... and that in turn discourages coaches from going easy as goal difference can matter and if you ease up because you are beating a team 12-0 at half-time and the next week your title rivals don't and beat them 31-0, then you have lost out significantly.

I wouldn't have that kind of slaughter rule.

The rule could be that no team can add more than +7 to their goal differential in any single game. So it if's 10-0, or 13-2 or 9-1, it all counts the same as 7-0. (or pick a number, but 7 sounds about right).

Or, as some leagues have done, the rule could just be that no goals beyond a certain number count.

In addition, they could add a rule that if the actual margin ever reaches some very high number at any point after the end of the first half, the match is over.

Then, if the standings need a tie breaker beyond standings points, head-to-head results, and goal differential, it could be the team that's conceded the fewest goals. After that, it could be the team that had the fewest cards. And, after that, just call it a tie because these are fucking kids and it doesn't matter.

The point should be to develop skills and tactical instincts. The way to do that in sports - as it is in anything - is to try something just slightly outside your "comfort zone." Trying something that is too easy or too hard does not develop skills.

So blowouts don't teach anybody anything except for maybe the kids on the blown-out team learn that they hate soccer or hate their teammates or hate their coach.

[imp]

"As long as that continues, this blog will be updated on an occasional basis only, which is surely a relief to us all."

No, not to "us all". Now, of course I don't want you being verbally and physically abused or being even more miserable than you are anyway, but can't you pretend that shitty things are happening and then blog about them? I mean, it's not as though you've never written any made-up stuff before.

Referee fiction - there's a good idea. Yet another genre with an audience in the low 100s. Actually, there was a short story somewhere there on the blog, about a linesman who disallows the best goal ever at the 2018 World Cup, but I can't remember if I took it down now or not. Because, whether the world wants it or not, I'm working in a new volume of football short stories. And the main reason I'm doing that is because ideas kept piling up down the years, and writing them gives me more pleasure than any other kind of writing. Whether anyone ever publishes them is unlikely, but that no longer bothers me much.

I went to watch a game in the Ostpark on Wednesday night - now that we've moved, the two clubs that play there (Olympia and FC Gudesding) are a short walk away, and I'm already getting a lot of low-key reffing assignments there, which is good. It was two level 8 teams in the second round of the Frankfurt Cup - that is, the highest level I could ref at until a couple of weeks ago. Both clubs (FC Gudesding, with Daniel Cohn-Bendit as their honorary president, and Makkabi Frankfurt, the city's only Jewish club) claim to represent sporting values above all else, and set themselves morally above the rest of the rabble in Frankfurt. During the first half, I was thinking, "What a perfect game. Hardly any fouls, no moaning at the ref - a lad in his late 20s who seemed to have the game in hand. Good football. Maybe it was me, I just wasn't up to games at this level." Makkabi were 2-0 up at the break.

Second half, different story. There are some close offside decisions (no linesmen, of course), and the shouting at the ref starts. Gudesding have two penalty claims turned down - more shouting at the ref (one definitely wasn't, the other was borderline). The bad tackles start flying in thick and fast from both teams. More shouting at the ref, and five yellow cards to go with one from the first half. The Gudesding coach moans like fuck after a Makkabi player only gets yellow for a straight-legged tackle. The ref talks to him instead of yellow-carding him, and the coach moans even more. I'd have red-carded this loudmouthed fucker by now, but he gets away with it. All of this is depressingly but reassuringly familiar - and reinforced my decision to bin men's games. Fucking arseholes, everywhere.

[treibeis]

All of this is depressingly but reassuringly familiar - and reinforced my decision to bin men's games. Fucking arseholes, everywhere.

One of my regulars has made a similar decision to yours - he only refs matches involving women, under-16s or Alte Herren.

The last one surprised me at first, as I can remember playing in a few Alte Herren games about 20 years ago and they were among the most competitive I've ever been involved in. (Which was hardly surprising; half the players were still in their early to mid-thirties, recently retired from the Oberliga and still as fit as a butcher's dog, and they were being reconciled with old lags who'd kicked the shit out of them when they were just starting out fifteen years earlier. There was a lot of score-settling going on.) However, this bloke still plays the occasional Alte Herren game - Christ knows how; he's 59 - so he still "speaks the language of the players" (which probably translates as "tells them to shut it and fuck off").

[treibeis]

A propos of nothing (except perhaps "stating the bleedin' obvious"):

The man in the middle at today's St. Pauli game is only 26, which strikes me as very young. But then I read that he's 1.99 metres tall, which, I reckon, is part of the reason for his meteoric rise through the ranks. Deniz Aytekin (also 1.99 metres or thereabouts), for example, is also said to have "natural authority". (I stood behind him last year in a queue at Düsseldorf Airport and he looks even taller because he's so skinny.)

Then there was that terrible bastard Helmut Krug a few years ago; Robert Hoyzer; the Hamburg self-promotion expert "Drago" who wrote that book that I never read; the big bloke in Hanover who could kick-box people to within an inch of their life - the list goes on and on. I suppose it's difficult to chest-jostle a ref when your nipples only come up to his bellybutton.

[imp]

I've thought about the Alte Herren, but they tend to kick off at 6pm on Saturday evening and that's my least favourite time to be reffing. Plus, I've seen it kick off in that league as well, from a distance. But others have assured me it's much more old school, and that even if they give you a hard time, they'll always get you to sit down with them afterwards for several beers. It could be worth a go in a year or two.

[Hot Pepsi]

Is that division actually called Alte Herren? Sounds like most of the players aren't even very alte.

[treibeis]

Is that division actually called Alte Herren? Sounds like most of the players aren't even very alte.

Yes, that's the name. I don't know what it's like where imp is, but here "Alte Herren" starts at the age of 32 (although I think the team may also have two players who are 29 or older). At 40, you can play in "Senioren", at 50 (or maybe 55, I'm not sure), you can play "Super-Senioren". There's also a league for people over 70, but I can't remember what it's called or if there are still enough teams for it to constitute a league.

I never played age-specific football (the Alte Herren games I mentioned upthread were just me standing in under somebody else's name). I played "normal" organised league football until I was in my mid-thirties, before work commitments made it impossible. I then spent 20 years in a pub team that regularly played against other "unofficial" teams, and finally hung up my boots forever when I broke my ankle in 2021.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Most County leagues in the UK will have "Veterans" for players aged 35 and over. I don't think there's any other age banding.

[Duncan Gardner]

Early Xmas gift of Reffing Hell. Looking forward to reading

[imp]

Yes, that's the name. I don't know what it's like where imp is, but here "Alte Herren" starts at the age of 32 (although I think the team may also have two players who are 29 or older). At 40, you can play in "Senioren", at 50 (or maybe 55, I'm not sure), you can play "Super-Senioren". There's also a league for people over 70, but I can't remember what it's called or if there are still enough teams for it to constitute a league.

The 'Old Men' start here in their early 30s in Frankfurt too. Also confusing for non-German speakers is the word 'Senioren' to describe anything above U19. So when relatives see my trophy I got in 2022 for 'Frankfurt Referee of the Year: Senioren', they're like, ah, I see, you got the trophy for pensioner referees. Hmm, yeah, well done, old boy.

[Duncan Gardner]

Early Xmas gift of Reffing Hell. Looking forward to reading

Enjoying following FC Offers Kickembach across the cinder pitches of Sudhessen

[Hot Pepsi]

The 'Old Men' start here in their early 30s in Frankfurt too. Also confusing for non-German speakers is the word 'Senioren' to describe anything above U19. So when relatives see my trophy I got in 2022 for 'Frankfurt Referee of the Year: Senioren', they're like, ah, I see, you got the trophy for pensioner referees. Hmm, yeah, well done, old boy.

In the North America, in sports, senior usually just means “older than junior” and junior usually ends around age 20, give or take.

[imp]

Whereas in Scotland the Junior Leagues have nothing to do with age at all. Something that confused me for years.

On Sunday I refereed an 80-minute girls' U17 match and whistled exactly one foul, and played advantage maybe twice for very mild infringements. One player did, however, launch into a lengthy complaint when I didn't call a foul after she was fairly robbed of the ball (her team was leading 7-0 at the time). It was so out of kilter with the tone of the game that, rather than pulling out the yellow card, I asked her mildly, "Do you want to keep discussing this, or are we done now?" One yellow card now in the last seven games. Though - probably a stupid move - I've accepted a boys' U17 game in Offenbach on Sunday in the Verbandsliga. The away team is bottom of the fair play table, and the home team's not much higher. Maybe I want to test myself to see if I can carry over my new sense of serene detachment into a game that will possibly involve high levels of scurrilous behaviour.

[Duncan Gardner]

Reminder of an opponent whose medical knowledge wasn't quite matched by his vocabulary

Ref you're so deaf ànd blindyou must have Ribenà

[imp]

New blog post: Have I still 'got it'?

[Etienne]

Ah, that's really nice.

[ad hoc]

Ah, that's really nice.

yes, what he said

[treibeis]

"At the end of the game (girls' U15), the away team coach tells me he would have loved a penalty so that his goalkeeper could have got on the score sheet"

It's a shame you didn't give it, as you could have let the keeper take it and then booked her for unsporting conduct (or whatever it's called these days).

(It probably isn't a bookable offence, or any sort of offence at all, but I hate it when goalkeepers are allowed to take penalties just because their team are hammering the opposition. A team I played in was once 5:0 up when we got a penalty near the end and some players were clamouring for our goalie to take it. The manager was having none of it, though. ("Der und Elfmeter? Nö! Der kann den Ball eh keine elf Meter weit schießen! Guckt euch seine beschissenen Abschläge an! Die verhungern so oft, da willst du eine Käsestulle hinterherschmeißen!").)

[imp]

Ha, yes - that moment when the keeper comes forward with a shit-eating grin, scuffs it into the other goalie's arms, then they have to race back to their own area with the same shit-eating grin on their face as the keeper whacks a long one.

I still have a bad conscience because in a First XI school game we were winning about 11-0 when I had a shot handled on the line. Our centre back had already scored twice and asked if he could take it as he'd never scored a hat-trick before. I said no way, it should have been my goal by rights, and I hadn't yet got on the score sheet that day. It was the first time I'd ever taken a penalty in a proper game. I hit it straight down the middle, and the goalkeeper didn't even need to move. Fortunately for me, it went straight through his legs. "I'd have killed you if you'd missed that," said my team-mate, who had every right to be more pissed off with me than he was.

Saw him again last year for the first time in years, but forgot to ask him if he ever scored a hat-trick. So perhaps I don't really have a bad conscience after all.

[imp]

edit: wrong thread

[Levin]

It's umpiring, but still.

Tom Curran suspended for four big bash matches for intimidation if an umpire.

https://twitter.com/7Cricket/status/1737743649159717053?t=pJQr1fOcCFpkn6GpSa2rPA&s=19

[MarkF]

Thought this should be acknowledged today…