Game
45, 2016-17
Last season I refereed a game where the home
team’s captain was a hypnotist. The first few times I gave decisions against
his team he walked up to me and commanded, “Look into my eyes, referee. Look
into my eyes.” I resisted this invitation on the grounds that if he really was
a hypnotist, I might spend the rest of the game ceding to his will every time
he said, “Mister Referee, you will now award my team another penalty kick. And
the score is already 67-0.”
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| How to control a referee who will not see reason |
Of course the captain didn’t want to
hypnotise me. He wanted to talk. There’s a certain type of player who just
loves to talk. Not about the weather, or what you had for dinner last night, or
the worrying rise of right-wing populism across the European Union. No, they
want to talk about your decisions. These players are not necessarily the
moaners and dissenters. Rather they think that, through a calm and rational
discussion, they can persuade you that the foul you just awarded against their
team was, in fact, not a foul at all.
It’s nice to imagine calling a halt in play
while league officials rush on to the field with a table, two chairs, two
glasses and a jug of water. The player and I sit down to review my decision at
length. First, I give my point of view. The home team’s number 6, due to a
combination of slowness, ineptitude and stupidity, had hacked down the
opposition’s speedy, nimble winger. My garrulous friend sees it differently.
His heavy, hulking, dead-eyed number 6 would never do such a thing. The winger
clearly dived.
Unable to agree, and in the absence of
video cameras at amateur grounds, we invite other players to give their point
of view. It seems we have 11 voting for a foul, 11 voting for the dive. So why
not empower the substitutes, the coaches and all the spectators too? Hey, stooping
old bloke with his limping dog – I know you haven’t seen anything clearly for
about 30 years, but did I just perpetrate a catastrophic injustice against the
big number 6?
That would all take far too long, of course,
although it might be a glimpse of the future burdened by endless video replays,
and benches lodging official appeals against every last offside decision. Here’s
the truth, though – I don’t want a long conversation with anyone on the field,
particularly not with Mr. Calm and Rational. I’d rather hear (again) from your
rubicund, raging number 9 who’s playing the game according to an imaginary
offside law that allows rubicund, raging number 9s to roam freely like buffalos
on the plain.
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| "You will immediately rescind my yellow card, Mr. Referee." |
Yesterday’s Mr. Calm and Rational, who’d already
seen yellow for deliberately obstructing a quickly taken free kick, wanted to
talk with me about a lot of my decisions. When I waved him impatiently away, he
calmly and rationally asked what on earth was wrong with having a calm and
rational discussion. Perhaps it’s just not the right time and place, you calm
and rational dickhead. If the fact that you infringed the laws of the game and
then I punished you appropriately is still bothering you at half-time, then
sure, let’s shoot the fucking breeze about it. If you really feel we must.
Then we can have an enlightening exchange
along the lines of:
Player: I never did that thing you said I
did and punished with a yellow card.
Me: Yes, you did.
Player (patronisingly exasperated): Oh come
on, you have to be kidding, how can you honestly say that I did that thing you
said I did that you punished with a yellow card.
Me: Because you did.
Now clearly I’m the one being unreasonable
here, inflexibly failing to yield any ground to Mr. Calm and Rational in his appeal
for Common Sense as He Sees It. That’s simply because Mr. Calm and Rational is
not only wrong, but he’s a chronic pain in the pipe when you’re trying to focus
on a game involving 22 strong young men where new incidents unfold in a flash.
The football field is just not really the place for lengthy, considered debate.
Final score: 1-3 (5 x yellow)
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.
Hilarious. I have not experienced Mr. Calm and Rational but now know what to look out for...thx. john
ReplyDeleteHe's usually in his 30s, the team captain, and plays central defence. He's seen it all in his long playing career, and that's why he's so calm and rational in the face of such a know-nothing referee.
ReplyDelete