Refereeing while injured

Games 1-2, 2021-22

I feel the hamstring in my right leg twitch around 30 minutes into the first game of the weekend. As a player, the troublesome muscle rarely allowed me such a warning, usually it just twanged like an eager rascal's catapult. But I can't just walk off and announce that I'm going to put my feet up with an ice-pack and a six-pack. There are no second, third or fourth officials to take my place.

Instead, I adjust my game. Instead of running with the play, I walk and occasionally trot from side to side to make sure that I have the best view of the ball and the players challenging for it, regardless of how far away they are. The hamstring perseveres with its cautionary twinges as my ageing body tells me that I need to rest. Still, the unruly muscle keeps itself in check until half-time.

At the interval, I massage the back of my upper leg with heat cream, pull on a hamstring support, and swallow two glucose

tablets. During the second half, I don't feel it at all, likewise on the cycle ride home. I have a second game less than 24 hours later. Rather than call off at the last minute (I know how well that goes down with my assignors), I get up early, put myself through a long stretching routine, take a warm bath before leaving the house, and again pre-treat the muscle before kick-off. I'm able to run, but don't attempt any rash sprints. Again, I'm grateful that the old body holds up for another week.

The two games - a boys' U19 and a men's friendly - both pass off peacefully enough. There's just one caution for dickish behaviour, when a midfielder on the U19 game bellows out a sarcastic laugh after an offside call. It's lovely how a small piece of yellow plastic waved in the air can shut a smartarse up in half a second. What I learn, though, aside from the fact that you're never too old to learn, is how much more important positional sense is compared with distance to the ball. You can run after play like a dream teen gazelle, but you can still be unsighted if you haven't approached the play from the right angle. If you hang back a little due to a looming injury (or encroaching age), then you have more time to focus on your own position and the potential of in-rushing players to block your view.

"How long have you been reffing? Forty years?" asks a player on the home team after the men's game. I'm not sure if he's being a cheeky bugger about my age, or complimenting me on my perceived experience for the way I handled the game. Either way, I don't mind. His team showed classy sportsmanship in the way they reacted to some unnecessarily late and over-charged fouls from the away team. I've had problems with them in the past, but they've changed their approach by focusing on their play and not on the referee or opponent. I watch their first team afterwards, and they play the same way - both teams get through the afternoon without a yellow card, and hardly the hint of a complaint towards the referees.

So, a useful start to the new season - the threat of a pulled muscle has pushed me towards more diligent physical preparation, and the enforced need to regulate my running has helped me adjust my positioning. Plus, the games were mostly quiet. Even if  six cautions over the course of two friendlies seems to belie that claim, the yellows were mainly down to poor judgment and reckless challenges, not malicious intent. 

In the youth game, one player politely asks me why I've just given him a yellow card for a deliberate but not especially heinous foul. "Because five minutes ago," I reply, "I was following you and I could see what you had in mind, so I kept saying, 'No foul! No foul!' and you didn't listen - you tried to trip the player, and after you failed to trip him you tried again and succeeded. That makes three fouls in all."

"Oh," he says. "Fair enough."

Game One: 2-5 (4 x yellow)
Game Two: 5-3 (2 x yellow)

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.