"Watch out, or I'll smack you in the face"

Game 24, 2019-20

The good news first - the weather's turned mild and it's stopped raining. It's my last game of the year, a men's mid-table clash, level 10. I'm warming up next to the pitch, where a boys' U13 game is coming to a close. There's a very young ref in charge, so I already have half an eye out on the game, but there's no major excitement from the touchlines and he seems to be fully in control.

Then, the away team coach starts yelling at him. I'm too far away to work out what it's about. There's no one down injured and there hasn't just been a goal or a penalty awarded, so there isn't any obvious cause. The coach is gesturing and shouting and he doesn't want to stop, so the young referee goes over to talk to him. I break off my warm-up and walk towards the field, though I'm still a few dozen yards away. The teenage referee is trying to talk to him, but the coach - a man of around 40, I'd say - is talking back over the top of him, loudly and vehemently. The young referee eventually gives up and goes back to re-start play. If this had been my game, the coach would have been red-carded, but I can see why a young ref might feel too intimidated to follow through in the face of such a performance.

Seconds after the game has resumed, I walk up to the coach and ask him why he's screaming at such a young referee. He looks at my warm-up jacket and sees the pennant of the city's refereeing association. Then he says, "Have you got a problem?" I tell him that as a referee I most certainly do have a problem with his touchline behaviour. His response is: "Well you'd better watch out then, or I'll smack you one in the face..."

On a dark, wet night when you just don't feel like refereeing...

Game 23, 2019-20

There are some days when you don't feel like leaving the house. It's getting late on a dark Sunday afternoon and the Scottish League Cup Final's just a click away. Everyone else in the family is on the sofa in the warm living room, a plate of Christmas sweets on the coffee table alongside the remote control. It's been raining for the past three hours. And I have a 5pm kick-off - boys U19, preceded by a cycle ride up a rutted, puddle-pocked and very busy road.

Many, many people ask me, "Why do you bother?" I should point out one thing that's maybe not always clear on this blog. I love refereeing. On a good day. In that respect, I'm like almost any fan. Some days I want to write a love letter to the sport that I coach, that I ref, and that I played for over four decades. And there are days when I want to sign off with 'Dear Football, It's taken me a long time to reach this conclusion, but it's finally time we went our separate ways...' It's always enticing to imagine the potential freedom that lies on the other side of such a break. Yet the fear of a head-fucking, latter-life crisis in the resultant void always prevents me from having the guts to take that ultimate leap.

And as Mrs RT says, "You'd be back out there four weeks later anyway." And no one knows me better than Mrs RT. She lived through my three previous attempts to retire from playing, and once from coaching...