"Ref, why?" When players are baffled by their own poor conduct

Games 7-8, 2021-22

Twenty minutes into a boys' U19 game, and I blow for offside against the home team's number 15. His reaction is to kick the ball far out of play, and so - predictably enough - I show him a yellow card. He looks at me all hurt and confused, like a rabbit whose previously loving owner has just shown him a pot of simmering stock and invited him to take a seat on the chopping board. "What was that for?"

Every week, players demonstrate how clueless they are about the laws of the game. Rather than sitting down to read them (you may be unsurprised to know that they are available for free on the global information network), they prefer to learn by a slow process of accumulating cautions. 'Delaying a restart' is a particularly common bone of contention, because for some reason players think that prodding the ball away from an opponent before they have the chance to take a throw-in or free-kick is absolutely normal practice and totally permissible. Perhaps they've seen it go unpunished on TV a few thousand times (thanks again to our wonderful pro refs for setting a great example for the amateur game. See also: Dissent).

Here are some other aghast reactions for yellow cards, from this one weekend alone:

Example 2: Unsporting Conduct. Two teenagers square up and exchange loud and rowdy words with each other, a sight as common in this city as pigeons shitting on a window ledge...

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.