Game
54, plus tournament, 2016-17
Should referees ever lose their calm and
take the low road? Absolutely not. Not ever. Which doesn't mean to say that it
won't happen. On Saturday I felt, for the first time in over eight years of
refereeing, that I didn't need to take the shit being thrown at me any more. It
didn't help. In fact it almost lead to me being physically assaulted.
 |
| A festival, a jamboree, a day-long celebration of the game and decent sporting values! |
It's the time of year for corporate
six-a-side tournaments, and I was one of several refs at an all-day jamboree spread
out over eight mini-fields. It's also a good chance to exchange views and
experiences with colleagues in the referees' tent, and the pay's generally a
lot better than at our officially sanctioned games. The downside is that the
tournaments follow a pattern as predictable as an unregulated teenage party
when the parents are out of town for the weekend.
Things start peacefully at 9am. The sun's
out and everyone's in a good mood, apart from the team in green, already marked
out in the first 13-minute game of the day as serial moaners....
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.
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