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    Daughter's first partial season as an official concluded with her refereeing the local schools finals at Brunton Park. This means that both of my kids have now achieved the double of playing in and officiating on competitive football on the hallowed turf, while all I've ever achieved there is to run around like a div after whatever promotion was achieved or relegation avoided.

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      Delighted, imp, you at least managed to punish some sarcastic applause.

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        After a very lengthy absence, I happily stumbled across this Forum and in particular this thread. Spent the last few weeks reading it from the start. Excellent stuff.

        Imp, your weekly blogs are a delight. Having played, managed, coached, spectated for many, many years, unfortunately I've seen too much of the unsavoury behaviour which you write so eloquently about.

        One of my favourite Ref stories, comes from my playing days. One of my team mates was not happy with a number of the ref's decisions and shouted "ref, you're have an absolute nightmare". The Ref quickly responded "that's debatable; but you're not exactly have the best of games yourself, are you son". "Aye, that's true". Smiles on faces and on with the game.

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          Bermuda Iron - I'm always delighted to see your posts. I lived in Bermuda for 11 years from 1990'and played football whilst I was over there, so I can well relate to a lot of your posts.

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            Originally posted by DPDPDPDP View Post
            After a very lengthy absence, I happily stumbled across this Forum and in particular this thread. Spent the last few weeks reading it from the start. Excellent stuff.

            Imp, your weekly blogs are a delight. Having played, managed, coached, spectated for many, many years, unfortunately I've seen too much of the unsavoury behaviour which you write so eloquently about.
            Thank you very much, 4 x DP. When was your previous OTF era, and would we remember your user name (if you can even remember it yourself)?

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              Originally posted by imp View Post
              Thank you very much, 4 x DP. When was your previous OTF era, and would we remember your user name (if you can even remember it yourself)?
              I honestly can't remember when it was but it was a long time ago. So long ago, that I couldn't remember my (old) user name and I had all sorts of palaver logging on as a newby as my email address was already in use. All sorted now.

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                If you PM me the email address then I can find it for you.

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                  Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post
                  If you PM me the email address then I can find it for you.
                  Thanks, but I'm ok now. The admin guys at One Touch sorted me out.

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                    GILCHRIST

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                      FARTLE

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                        The only way I welcome those people back is if they side with me on the Jaffa cakes/biscuits debate. And even that would just be a starting point for negotiations.

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                          To make a change from me moaning about stroppy amateurs and unbalanced coaches, here's a World Cup-based refereeing short story. You can tell it's fiction because Italy are in it. You can peruse it while watching the latest 1-0 group game.

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                            Same old shit in the first game of the season. But that looks like it could well be my final game as a referee, and I'm not anything like as down about it as I thought I would be.

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                              Can't you just fictionalise the blog? A big loss. if not to the game in Frankfurt (pleased they'e keeping you on in some capacity ) then to readers everywhere

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                                Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                                Can't you just fictionalise the blog? A big loss. if not to the game in Frankfurt (pleased they'e keeping you on in some capacity ) then to readers everywhere
                                Heh heh. That's a tempting next step. Super-Ref, hovering above the city on Sunday afternoons, then swooping down into crisis games to strike down unsporting bastards and restore justice with on-the-spot cards, bans and fines.

                                Other fantasy suggestions welcome.

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                                  I qualified as a referee back home in Lincolnshire in 2003. I let my qualification lapse and just recently thought about taking it up again this season. So, I went online and looked for a course here in South Wales. I quickly reconsidered my decision: £80 for a self taught online course. When I qualified through the Lincs FA (who are shambolic at the best of times) it was £15 for a 10 week classroom based course + exam. Whilst I appreciate it was 15 years ago - to charge people £80 and then expect them to teach themselves is outrageous. No wonder we have a shortage.

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                                    Yep, that's a big ask, especially for younger referees. In Germany, you have to be a member of a club, but the club will pay your tuition fees, because (I've probably mentioned this before) they need to have a certain number of referees or they get fined. The club also pays for your uniform/equipment.

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                                      Originally posted by imp View Post
                                      Yep, that's a big ask, especially for younger referees. In Germany, you have to be a member of a club, but the club will pay your tuition fees, because (I've probably mentioned this before) they need to have a certain number of referees or they get fined. The club also pays for your uniform/equipment.
                                      That's a good idea linking it to clubs.

                                      In England I think when academy players get to 14 the club they are at should be obliged to put them through a referees course in conjunction with the local FA. When qualified if they don't make their match day squad they should have to referee a local game instead.

                                      I think the benefits of this would be huge;

                                      Young footballers would actually know the rules
                                      If they didn't make it through to the next year, YT, pro etc and didn't want to continue playing refereeing would be an option
                                      They would (hopefully) learn how difficult it is to referee and therefore learn to respect the job of doing it
                                      They would learn skills of organisation and (if refereeing with linesman) a different type of team work

                                      Unfortunately, it'll never happen though (unless I win the euromillions at which point it will become club policy at Grimsby Town with immediate effect).

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                                        I agree with you completely. I wrote a piece for the wsc site years ago saying that all professional players should be obliged to do the refereeing course and to officiate a certain number of youth or local games per year.

                                        It used to be a statutory part of the coaching course in Germany to have to attend the refereeing course too, and to pass the exam. When I did my refereeing course here in early 2015 there were several coaches attending it too, but they were about to abolish that requirement. I don't know why. It's got so bad with youth coaches in Frankfurt that there's a mandatory meeting for all youth coaches a week on Monday with the referees' association. Presumably an appeal for more sanity with the threat of another referees' strike.

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                                          Originally posted by imp View Post
                                          But that looks like it could well be my final game as a referee
                                          Sad to hear it, have very much enjoyed the blog.

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                                            Seconded.

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                                              Originally posted by imp View Post
                                              Same old shit in the first game of the season. But that looks like it could well be my final game as a referee, and I'm not anything like as down about it as I thought I would be.
                                              Also, I missed this initially. Sorry to hear that too.

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                                                You're not fit to referee,
                                                You're not fit to referee,
                                                You're not fit to,
                                                You're not fit to,
                                                You're not fit to referee!

                                                Will miss the blog imp, cheers.

                                                I recently had some gentle exposure to refereeing, helping out at my club's under 7 to U11 blitz. It's a fun day and low key, but I still came away with an appreciation of a few things. 1) its incredibly hard to see everything thats going on. 2) communication is critical but its hard when players/coaches/spectators can't/won't/don't listen. 3) Even in a non-competitive super-inclusive environment lots of people are twats- calling fouls and handballs against 8-year-olds, claiming spurious throws and corners, giving out to their own kids. Don't think I could handle reffing teen or adult matches.

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                                                  Ah well, fun while it lasted.

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                                                    Thanks again, everyone - knowing there's a sympathetic audience here was one of the things that helped me keep going, and I've really appreciated your support. But on most game days I was cycling off and increasingly questioning whether I really wanted to be doing this in my free time. Even more so on the way home. Frau imp reckoned it was only a matter of time before someone twatted me (or worse), and with things having escalated from verbal threats ("I'll break your neck") to a shirt in the face to a shove in the chest, she was probably right.

                                                    I'll still be experiencing (un)sporting behaviour as a coach, and I'm hoping to ref youth games eventually on smaller fields, so I'll update the blog from time to time if there's something worth saying. There just won't be the regular insanity of Frankfurt and Offenbach Kreisliga A and B, which is a good thing for my soul.

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