Three red cards and some issues of racial awareness

Games 40-41, 2016-17

Some days, this seems like time
better spent than refereeing. 

Sometimes I get assigned to a game out of town, and when I look at the laughably christened Fair Play Table, my heart sinks a little and I think I know why I'm being given the treat of a longer trip. Yesterday I was sent to officiate between teams who, in the disciplinary rankings, were third bottom (the home team) and bottom (away). This is in a league of very few angels, where you have to be almost conscientiously deviant to hit last place.

I presume that the idea is to ship an unknown ref in for a potentially explosive game, then let him flee the scene never to be heard of again in that neck of the woods. It's true there are some players you encounter on a weekend afternoon you'd might not want to meet on the street late on a week day night. I've retained a clear image in my head of the player who threatened to break my neck last autumn. You know, just in case.

I talk with the referee who's just officiated the game before me, between the reserve teams of the same two clubs. How was it, I ask. He shrugs. "Well," he says of the away team. "They're..." And he names their nationality, like it's understood...

Want to read more? Click here to order Reffing Hell: Stuck In The Middle Of A Game Gone Wrong by Ian Plenderleith (Halcyon Publishing), published on August 8, 2022.