Monday 17 February 2020

It's almost routine - a red card for violent conduct in a youth game

Game 32-33, 2019-20

"If the poor, insulted mothers only knew how many fights they were responsible for instigating on the football fields of Germany every weekend..." So began one of my paragraphs in the disciplinary report that followed Sunday's U17 boys game. 

Call someone a 'bastard', and they might get shirty, but they don't scream, "Are you saying my mum and dad weren't married when I was born?" Call someone a wanker and they might be pissed off, but they don't get right in your face and yell, "Are you implying that I indulge in acts of self-gratification? ARE YOU?" Yet call someone a son of a whore, and they immediately think that you are insulting their mother and freak out in her defence. This insult is apparently personal in a way that being a bastard or a wanker is not. I'm not saying any of these terms are acceptable on the football field (they're not), but this last one really seems to set the place on fire...

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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