The amateur ref's version of VAR

Games 27-29, 2021-22

Although I despise the Video-Assistant Referee (VAR) when it cancels out goals for fractional offsides not visible to the human eye, I'm a big fan of it in certain situations of clear injustice. This is especially applicable to penalties, which are in any case inherently unjust - an innocuous foul close to the edge of the penalty area doesn't deserve the same punishment as a deliberate handball on the goal-line (but that's an argument for another day). When a game-changing decision is reversed thanks to close-up proof of an ankle-tap or a dive, then it's certainly to the benefit of football, and serves to smother at least some of the toxic anger aimed at referees for controversial calls.

Of course, amateur referees have no VAR, as we'll often sardonically point out to players in the thralls of protest and gesticulation. Sometimes, though, we have other clues and pointers when we're uncertain. On throw-ins and corner-kicks, for example, when two players have challenged for the ball and you're unsure who touched it last, you can often tell from the players' body language which way to point. If the attacker runs off to retrieve the ball and the defender runs back to the six-yard box to defend the corner-kick, then you know for sure they were the last player to touch the ball. (But if they both yell, "Corner!/Goal kick!" at the same time, then you just have to make a wild guess, while looking bold and full of conviction.)

Anyway, in the second half of a level 8 men's game, with the hosts leading 2-0, I'm caught out of position by a long punt that launches a swift counter-attack by the home team. As two players challenge for an aerial ball on the edge of the away team's penalty area (I'm probably just over the halfway line by now), the defender climbs all over the forward's back and flattens him. It's such a clear foul that the defender and forward are both laughing as they help each other back up. The question, though - was it in the area or out? Quite simply, I'm too far off the play to see for sure, but my initial reaction is to whistle and point to the penalty spot...

Another fraught episode of the Refereeing Reality Show

Games 23-26, 2021-22

Some weekends I feel like I'm living in a referee's version of The Truman Show, and that the games I'm assigned are merely staged to provoke drama for the sake of my viewing figures and the delight of a sofa-based audience high on popcorn and catastrophe. I already knew before Sunday's game (26) - a Level 8 local diaspora derby between two clubs not known for taking a placid approach to sport - that it would be a tough afternoon. Even with all my experience of football in this city, though, I wasn't expecting enough material for a five-act play. A sole blog entry can barely do this game justice. I'll try to stick to the highlights.

1. The Suspended Player. The away team's side includes a player (the number 3) I red-carded back in August. One of the team officials recognises me before the match, and while we chat I ask him how long the player was suspended for. Six weeks, he replies, and the club only let him return after that because he'd begged them and pleaded for mercy - this red card hadn't been his first. "He's a good player but has absolutely no mental control," is the club official's assessment. Curiously, just before kick-off, another of the away team's officials asks me if I can make the player's name 'non-public' in the match report. Why? "He just doesn't want his name out there." Hmmm, okay.

2. The Brothers. There's a brother on each team, and this is the first time they've ever played against each other. "I promised our mum I would take him out with a wild tackle - just once," the older one says. "He needs taking down a peg or two." All in jest, of course. But just to be on the safe side I say, "Of course you can, as long as you don't mind taking the yellow card that comes with it." A very 'ref' thing to say - I'm great fun at parties, honest. 

3. The Crowd. There are over 300 spectators in the small ground. It's the same place where I reffed The Game From Hell. It's also the place where I oversaw the expulsion of several spectators a few years back during a reserve team game, for anti-Semitic abuse aimed at the city's only Jewish team. It's compulsory for clubs to designate two stewards in yellow jackets to keep order. Today there are five.

4. The Opening Minute. The home team's number 7 scores within seconds of the start, but he's offside. There's no dispute about the decision, but he immediately gets into a verbal and physical confrontation with his direct opponent, who is... the number 3 (see above). "Is there a problem here already?" I ask. Instead of shaking hands and assuring me there's not, they keep arguing. I show them both yellow cards. The game is 40 seconds old...

"I'm a ref too!" Not today, coach. Plus: foul mouths, foul play, foul weather

Games 20-22, 2021-22

A lot of tales to get through, so we'll take it match by match:

Game 20: Boys U11 cup. At half-time the home team's coach tries to pull rank on me. "I referee at [such and such] level, and that was a clear penalty we should have had." For the record, it wasn't a penalty, I was two yards away from it. Much more importantly, don't pull that 'I'm a referee too' shit when you're coaching, except to offer support. Tonight you're the coach, I'm the ref. (A colleague later looks him up online - he refs no higher than kids' soccer, so he's a liar as well as a... whatever you classify people as who pull rank in a patronising manner.)

He could do with paying more attention to his coaching. Twice I have 10-year-olds from his team insolently disputing decisions, and his goalkeeper kicks the ball away to waste time. The disease of dissent is seeping down the age groups, but there are no cards at this level so I'm left with three short, stern lectures. But those lectures need to be coming from the coach, not me. From the opponents, though, a kid comes up to me and says very humbly, "I think you may have made a mistake on that corner kick." And, very politely, I explain back that due to the nature of the deflection, I did not. Cute.

Final score: 2-2 (5-6 after penalties - the time-wasting by the keeper didn't work, his team conceded a late equaliser. Football crime doesn't pay, kids!)

Game 21: Boys U19 on a notoriously filthy field that's already hosted a game today, so it's bumpy, muddy and slippery. Best just to cut straight to the disciplinary report...

The perpetual question for amateur referees: "Why the fuck do I bother?"

Games 18-19, 2021-22

Lock him up.

Imagine you're reading a book, sitting peacefully on a bench by a quiet river on a still afternoon, when someone stops in front of you and starts to yell in your face, "Ian McEwan? IAN FUCKING MCEWAN? What are you reading that shit for, you idiot - you should be reading David Keenan's This Is Memorial Device!" Or you're hiking the Pennine Way from Steel Rig to Bellingham when another walker stops you and screams, "You didn't take the detour for the view from Cuddy Crags, and to look at the excavated Roman fort at Housesteads? WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?"

I'm just trying to think of another hobby apart from refereeing where you'd have to put up with a similar level of loud verbal abuse. Just recently I'd had a run of games which - while they were not exactly peaceful- were definitely under control, and I was really starting to enjoy football again. Then came a match last Thursday night that set me back and left me feeling crushed. As I wrote in a somewhat tired and frustrated state after the game on Twitter: "An absolutely miserable men's game tonight - fouling, moaning about every decision, diving, players squaring up, spurious offside appeals. Back to the basic question: why the fuck do I bother?" 

The tweet has had an unprecedented 57 'likes' (roughly ten times my average), which suggests that it resonated among fellow refs. I'd just come off filing the statutory match report (goal scorers, substitutions, cautions etc.), but had opted against a disciplinary report because I was mentally exhausted. But there's also a section in the report for 'Particular Incidents'. We've been expressly told not to write about disciplinary matters in this box because it's supposed to be for irregularities with player passes, serious injuries etc., but I was in the mood to vent, so I wrote the following:

"Massive bundle in the 75th. minute...