Loud Arsehole Dad - meet Loud Arsehole Mum!

Games 27-29, 2022-23

Remember last weekend's sportsmanlike spectator of the day, Loud Arsehole Dad (LAD)? This past Saturday's U15 game yielded another example of this hopefully dying species. Throughout an otherwise entirely peaceful first half, LAD screams about call after call. I ignore him, because there's nothing wrong with my calls, and nothing to discuss. At half-time, I even text a fellow ref: "Very quiet except for one really loud dad everyone's ignoring. Twat."

As we're taking the field for the second half, the home team's number 9 cheerfully tells me, "Sorry about my dad on the touchline there. Don't worry about him, he's nuts." I reply that I'd been wondering which player he was attached to, though I don't mention that just a couple of minutes ago I'd referred to him in a text message as a twat. The number 9's a nice lad, though, and scores two goals in the second half. In a happy parallel to last week's game, the next generation seems to be learning from the LADs - here's the model bad parent showing you how not to behave. Good job, dad!

I'd reffed the away team just four days earlier in a testy cup tie. Two of their players ended up with cautions in that game - one for his part in a hormone-driven face-off, and one for a nasty foul. They remember me fine, and as we're going through the player's ID passes, I mention to both players that I'd hate to have to take their names for the second time in a week. Their team-mates laugh, and they all behave perfectly for the entire 70 minutes, despite getting hammered 5-0 in a game to decide who goes top of the division.

Loud Arsehole Dad, Captain Argument and... A Flare

Games 24-26, 2022-23

In the centre of the city there are 15 minutes to go in this toxic, fractious, foul-flooded U19 game. Yet again, there's a player on the ground clutching some part of his leg, and an exasperated opponent with hands held up, claiming innocence. As I check on the player's welfare, there's another collective cry from behind me, even though the ball's out of play. What now? I turn around to see red flames and a cloud of smoke wafting across the artificial surface. One of the away contingent has thrown a flare on to the field. Every weekend, we mine a new depth of shithousery.

A home team official runs on to pick it up and extinguish it. He's the same official I asked at the start of the match to provide two field marshals in yellow vests, as required by the competition rules. They never materialised. I wouldn't normally have asked, but the away team has a certain reputation, and it's not a fantastically good one. Their following - and in case you're wondering, it's definitely not common for U19 away teams to bring fans along - has been loud throughout. Shite rap music ('Turn it off!' My order); standing on the wrong side of the perimeter fence ('Get behind the barrier!' - me again, always the asshole spoiling everyone's fun); the occasional smell of weed (not going to get involved in that discussion); and exaggerated reactions to every tackle and refereeing decision (they're just being 'fans', I suppose - nothing I can do about that). When I yellow-card the home team's right back directly in front of them, there's a huge cheer in my name: "Yes, referee! Go, referee!"

The Fan Who Cried 'Scandal!'

Games 22-23, 2022-23

It's a sporting truth that the spectators on the touchline know the laws of the game much better than the qualified referee in the middle of the park. Accordingly, we hear from them all the time. In the second half of Sunday's game, following a corner kick cleared by the defending away team, I stay in position so that I'm standing directly in line with the defence as the home team plays the ball back into the danger area. Their number 6 is standing a yard offside, inside the 6-yard box, but moves back into an onside position to receive the pass.

He's about to turn and score when I blow my whistle and raise my arm, and of course he's frustrated. He blasts the ball out of play and curses, though not directly at me, so I don't show the yellow card - his team is five goals in arrears, so I let it go. I make the air traffic control gesture to indicate that he's come back to receive the ball from an offside position. Behind me, though, a lone spectator begins to bellow long and loud to the autumnal sky, finishing with the words, "That's an absolutely disgraceful decision! That's a scandal!" Among a crowd of maybe 60-70 people, I hope that at least one of them explains to him why he's shouting shite.

29 players, four coaches, and one 'thank you'

Games 20-21, 2022-23

Whenever I went to a birthday party as a kid, or just round to someone else's house for tea, my mum would drum it in to my head that, at the end of the afternoon, I should always remember to say thank you. When I got home, her first question was, "Did you remember?" Maybe you regard good manners as a bourgeois affectation, and you could be theoretically correct, but I'm nonetheless glad that I was taught the value and necessity of basic courtesy. It costs you nothing more than a few seconds and a little exercise of the tongue.

Please, show some merci

Some parties were better than others, it has to be said. Some kids' mothers were better cooks than other kids' mothers (dads did not prepare meals in the English east Midlands in the 1970s). Either way, they had made the effort to invite you round to host, entertain and feed you. Even if all you got was a sandwich made out of cucumber and stale bread, you still said those two wonderful words. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It generally meant you'd be welcome back next time around, and that your mate's parents didn't think you were an ill-mannered little prick.

On Saturday, I reffed a boys' U19 game, and it was pretty much par for

the course. A quiet first half followed by a rowdy second one, with much fouling, howling, protesting, and apparent contraventions of sporting justice. A short speech to the away team coach about him being a model for good behaviour rather than a tantrum-prone tower of twattery. A very lenient four yellow cards. The next day, I put out a tweet: "Boys' U19 yesterday: out of 29 players and four coaches there was a single, 'Thanks, ref', at game's end (away team's goalie). This is about average. I don't expect eulogies, just a touch more courtesy."

The tweet garnered a positive response, but also drew what another respondent called "a weird tweet"

50 touchline refs, but none with the guts to pick up a whistle

Game 19, 2022-23

When Saturday came, I took a day off to hang out with Mrs Ref. We acted like we were on holiday - got up late, went out for breakfast, took in a gallery and a film, then indulged ourselves at dinner. Football only came into play when we watched the Bundesliga highlights just before midnight. When the game's become a year-round, all-pervasive, seven-day affair, it does no harm to shut it out for a short while (or a long one).

On Sunday afternoon I had a level-8 game 20 miles out of town, in another one of those small towns with one bar, one pharmacy, one team. It rained all morning as I toyed with the transport alternatives of bike or train. According to the online updates, the trains were running late or not at all, and I'm stressed at even the first thought of being stranded on a platform somewhere between A and B, with kick-off approaching and the nearest taxi-rank half an hour away. At 12.15, it's raining hard, but at 12.20 it stops and clears, and so I jump on my bike and head cross-country on the old trading route that's now a cycle and hiking path.

Just under two hours later, spattered with mud, I'm greeted by the club secretary with the usual query when he doesn't believe his own eyes: "You came by bike?" The bike rack's empty, but the car park's full. The reserves are struggling at 3-1 down. There's no official referee, so they've commandeered someone from the home club, who's wearing a track-suit and following the government directives to save as much energy as possible. He gives the home side a penalty, generating an opera's worth of choral disbelief from the visitors.

Can I manage games with fewer cards?

Games 16-18, 2022-23

I sometimes wonder if I'm too quick to show yellow cards. There's a fine balance between setting the tone in a potentially difficult game, and coming across as an over-officious twat who loves to dip into their pocket and display what they've got. On Saturday afternoon, I observe a referee who's in charge of a U19 game on the field where I'm about to referee U15s. Instead of dishing out punishments, he deals with every conflict by delivering a few calm and well-chosen words. It's never too late to learn, and for 20 minutes I'm captivated by this young man's ability to manage potentially tense situations.

Put that damned thing away, ref!

Of my three games this weekend, I knew that two were unlikely to cause many problems - the above-mentioned U15 game (it's only at the next age group - U17 - that the hormonal shithousery starts to take off, and finally dwindles about 30-40 years later), and a girls' U17 game on early Sunday evening. Inbetween, on Sunday lunchtime, there's boys' U19 at city level, a league with perpetual firework possibilities. Could I somehow get through this game by imitating the style of my colleague the day before?

My interaction starts with the away team, who have just four players, still in civvies, standing outside their changing-room with ten minutes until kick-off. They know what I'm gong to say, so they start to reassure me that everyone's on their way. By some miracle, we only start five minutes late, though they have no coach, who's

The untouchable dignity of the referee. Plus, beer and a sausage sandwich

Game 15, 2022-23

It takes me three trains to get to Sunday's game, in a small town way south of the city. I have to leave the flat three hours before kick-off, because the train that would get me there in perfect time has been cancelled. There's a 20-minute walk at the other end, and the only sound is of the rain as it breaks against my protective umbrella. Like all small German towns on the week's only sacred day, it's so peaceful that you wonder how they allow raucous, tonsil-testing football games to take place at all. Though the ground is beyond the town boundaries and any potential noise complaints.

As it's been raining for two days, I envision a sloping cow-field covered in puddles - because we're out in the countryside, right? In reality, it's a lovely little pitch surrounded by hedges and, along one side, three shelves of wooden terracing. There are some weird circles of dirt among the green grass, caused - the groundsman tells me - by underground sprinklers that will no longer water where they're told to. "But, you know, they cost €800 each to replace," he adds with the stoicism that's pre-requisite to being counted among amateur football's sub-nation of unsung volunteers.

Back in my changing room, I confront the familiar pre-match emotion of mild dread that now settles into my gut prior to all men's matches. What level of gamesmanship, dissent, anger and all-round shithousery will be in store for me today? There's a consensus that leagues outside of the city are easier to manage, and that clubs are far more hospitable. In general it's true, but it's not guaranteed. I take note of the laminated A4 sheet on the changing-room's desk. Respect. Tolerance. Fairness. There's a special section for the referee:

Dissent - football's festering verbal disease

Games 11-14, 2022-23

Dissent. Never-ending dissent. I would enjoy refereeing ten times more if players would just shut up and play. If they would only learn that moaning about a decision will not prompt me to change my mind, but it will prompt me to recall Law 12 and its rectangular yellow sanction for theatrical gesticulation and runaway gobs.

Half-time event (see below)

How I love games without dissent. Like the two intense, hard-fought midweek cup ties last week - a U17 and a U19 game - where there was an almost complete absence of moaning. The one player booked for dissent over the two games came and shook my hand after the final whistle, said thank you, and even smiled.

There are teams that take you seriously when you show no mercy for their lack of respect. In Saturday's U19 boys' league game, I lecture to one complaining home team player, "My name is not 'Ref', to you it's Mr. Referee, and you will keep your mouth closed and accept my decisions for the rest of the afternoon." It doesn't even need that stupid little yellow card to come out of my pocket - that's it with the dissent until the fifth and final minute of stoppage time.

The home team's leading 5-4 and are taking the ball to the corner flag. When the ball goes out of play, I indicate a throw-in for the hosts. The away team's left back unleashes a torrent of abuse in my direction. I

The Romance and the Rain (and the home coach is a pain)

Game 10, 2022-23

A men's cup game in the rain under floodlights - that always sounds so romantic. Does this constellation bring out the best in the two teams, though? Is this game the sporting equivalent of a candlelit dinner with a laid-back jazz trio playing smooth grooves in the background? If you've been reading this blog for the past six years, you'll know the answer to that without reading a further word.

Romance in the rain. It's over-rated.

The home team play two levels below the visitors, but clearly relish their role as underdogs. Their bench is loud, as refereeing colleagues had warned me it would be. "The first time their coach yells at you, show him a card," is their advice. "Don't worry, he's used to it." Indeed, by the eighth minute, I've flourished the lightly coloured plastic towards a man whose default setting appears to be: hysterical hobgoblin on the verge of a cardiac arrest. A few minutes later his son - playing in midfield - follows suit for commenting, "You might as well go upstairs and ref the game from there." I'm not sure what that actually means, to be honest (their clubhouse only has one floor), but the tone's enough to again lure the card out of my pocket.

With just 17 minutes gone, the home team's 0-1 down and has four yellow cards for a combination of dissent and extremely robust play. The insane thing is that this goes on to help them win the match. They

It's a corner. It's also half-time. What happens next?

Games 7-9, 2022-23

It's still warm, so after the 30-minute mark a lot of players are asking me how long until half-time. Just before the break, and with no injury time planned, I hold up two fingers and bellow loudly, "Two minutes!" for the benefit of players, coaches and spectators alike. And for me too, so that no one asks again.

A corner. But where is everyone?

The final passage of play takes us 30 seconds over the 45-minute mark, and the ball goes out for a corner to the away team. Acting in accordance with the Laws of the Game, I blow for half-time, and every referee alive will know what happens next - screams of outrage from the away team. "But we've got a corner!"

When you explain the rules to a player who's telling you with bulging eyes that they know better, here's what never happens: they calm down and say, "Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for putting me right, ref." In reality, they get even angrier. So if you tell them that the only reason to extend a half beyond the allotted time is to take a penalty kick, they will still look at you like you pissed in their kit bag and shout, "But we've got a corner!"

Games go well when coaches know discipline

Games 5-6, 2022-23

It's still hot, so we're having a drinks break, 23 minutes in. The score's 0-0 in the first Level 9 league game of the season. I walk over to a bucket of water by the touchline to cool myself off. Three elderly gentlemen are sitting on a bench behind the barrier.

"Just thought you should know," one of them says. "But our number 7 wasn't offside."

"Thanks for the tip."

"You're welcome."

(Holding up the whistle) "Do you fancy a go with this? Then I can come and sit in the shade for the rest of the afternoon?"

They know the rules (photo: imb)

We will never know for sure whether the number 7 was offside or not, but the player's opinion of my decision will be always marked in the record books by a yellow card for dissent. It's an early one (15 minutes on the clock), and no one on his team yells at me after that. The guests have their own moaner, the number 14 midfielder, and he gets an entry in my note-book just before half-time. If all the first half energy from players sounding off at their team-mates was converted into football skill, we'd be witnessing a classic. As it is, we go into the break goalless, having heard and seen nothing but vented fury and wayward balls.

Drinks break, second half. The home team is by now 2-0 up. I walk over to the same bucket and ask the three wise men if they've seen any more refereeing errors. 

A night of serial errors - all from me

Game 4, 2022-23

Right after the final whistle I walk straight to my changing room and lock the door. Almost immediately, there's a knock. "Referee?" I tell them to wait, and that I need ten minutes. I need to think something over. I need to think about the mistake I made five minutes before the end of the game, and what I'm going to do about it.

It's the last of the pre-season warm-ups, between good teams from levels 9 and 8. It's getting a bit chippy towards the end, but nothing out of the ordinary. I don't show a yellow card until the 78th. minute, when the away team's number 2 goes in too hard on an opponent and then throws him over. It's not his first foul of the evening. Apart from that, just some standard moaning about decisions as the sun goes down and visibility worsens - we're playing on the grass field, and there are no floodlights.

Another mistake...

Then, with five minutes to go, the same number 2 gets into a tangle with the home team's number 13 and they have a minor set-to. I break them up and tell them to stay sane as we've only five minutes to play. I make them shake hands, which they only manage with a demonstrative reluctance. I should show them both yellow, but that would mean a dismissal (second yellow) for number 2. It's not been that kind of game, though, so I trust to their common sense.

That's my first mistake. Just 30 seconds later they go for a ball with the same result - an unpleasant wrestling match that I run over to break up again with my whistle. Next mistake - I react emotionally (the very thing I'm always criticising players for), and am so pissed off that they've ignored my previous lecture that I show them both the red card. This prompts instant outrage from both everyone on the field and on the touchline (though, funnily enough, not from the players themselves).

Attempting the art of early de-escalation

Games 1-3, 2022-23

Cycling towards my first friendly of the season, heavy black clouds pollute the north-east horizon somewhere close to where I'll soon be refereeing. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the river, a woman is screaming at me, but I can't understand what she's saying. Maybe she's some sort of soothsayer calling out, "Don't embark on another season of madness! Turn your bike around and quit now! Heed the storm ahead and lay down your whistle!" Or maybe she's just calling out, "You're shit, ref! I already know that wasn't offside and we haven't even kicked off yet!"

I keep pedalling, because it won't go down too well if I tell my assignor that I didn't show up because a mad woman on the banks of the Nidda was hollering portents of grief. Maybe I should have paid her more attention, though, because just 12 minutes into the game, I'm showing the first caution of the season when the home team's number 10 flies in and takes out an opponent with the kind of challenge which, if you cut it open down the middle, would reveal the words PRETTY FUCKING UGLY engrained from top to bottom. The player betrays a flicker of exasperation when he sees the yellow in my hand, but thankfully refrains from claiming immunity on the grounds that it was "my first foul, ref!"

Reffing Hell! This blog is about to become a book

Reffing Hell: Stuck in the Middle of a Game Gone Wrong

"Insightful, hilarious and hair-raising, Reffing Hell will make you wonder why anyone becomes a match official, and very glad that Ian Plenderleith did." Harry Pearson

This blog's now been running for six years. Thanks to the excellent gentlemen at Halcyon Publishing, it's about to become a book. Published on August 8, 2022, you can pre-order it here direct from the publisher. FREE postage for UK pre-orders. 

If you've enjoyed this blog, thank you so much for reading. If you want to support my writing and a bold and independent upcoming publisher, then please consider buying a copy. Each chapter is blessed by sketches from When Saturday Comes and The New European illustrator Tim Bradford, @Urban_Country.  

The entries in the book are no longer available on the blog except as teasers. However, all of the entries that didn't make the cut are still here to read for free, including the most recent games. I will continue to write the blog throughout the coming 2022-23 season - injuries and the state of my soul permitting.

Reffing Hell: Stuck in the Middle of a Game Gone Wrong by Ian Plenderleith, illustrated by Tim Bradford (Halcyon Publishing, £12.99). Pre-order here.

In the mood to chat with the crowd

Game 53, 2021-22

Yellow fields, not cards (pic: RT)

I decide to take my bike on the train to game 53, and then cycle the rest of the way at the other end, probably about 12 miles. I'm on the platform ready to go at half past noon (for a 3.15 kick-off) when all the trains disappear from the departures board, and all of a sudden there's nothing running in either direction. There's no public information, but on my phone app the trains have also been struck off. With no idea how long this will last, I decide to cycle to the match instead. It's a 40-kilometre ride.

Around half way there, pedalling into a relentless head wind, another app's telling me that I'll only arrive at the club two minutes before kick-off. I stop and call them and ask to delay the start for 15 minutes. They're jovial and co-operative and tell me not to worry. Still, focusing on just actually making it there takes my mind off the game. Plus, there have been a host of non-football matters this week that have put any thoughts about refereeing completely out of my head. By the time we finally kick off on a patchy, uneven pitch where the grass is too long, I'm completely relaxed about what may or may not happen around me today. I'm just happy to have made it here at all.

Refs are not above the game. Any game

Games 51-52, 2021-22

Everybody's game (Pic: RT)

I spend enough time on here complaining about the behaviour of players, coaches and spectators alike. Many referees, though, don't help much either when it comes to showing our profession in a good light. From my perspective as a coach, here's what I often see from the touchline:

* poor dress code, giving off a 'couldn't care less' impression. Tracksuit bottoms when it's neither really wet nor cold. Short socks, socks rolled down or wrong socks altogether. Shabby, polyester jersey from the 90s - no excuse for that as new kit's not expensive, and most clubs here pay for their refs' gear. Refs shouldn't be wearing caps, scarves or gloves unless the weather's really extreme. 

* absent communication. I coach a U11 team. They're not hard to talk to - they're still in the pre-adolescent phase of being curious, cheeky and cheerful. They love jokes, for example. They don't mind clear instructions or explanations on, say, foul throws or where to stand on free-kicks, or even why you gave a particular decision. Really, any kind of human interaction to show that we're all in this game together.

Back to reffing (and wanting to pack it all in)

Games 48-50, 2021-22

I've been out for over a month due to travel, illness and injury (Game 48, which I hobbled through following a hamstring strain on 20 minutes - "You weren't any slower than most of the refs we get," according to the home team), and in this time Fifa has instituted a new rule that the side in arrears is allowed to 1. constantly moan at the referee and 2. blame the referee should the game end in defeat. This has always been an unspoken law of football, so I'm pleased that it has now apparently been set in Zürich's cold, black ink. Both losing teams this weekend are right on top of it.

One man and his dog, later
heard to bark, "The ref's shit!"

Game 49 is a level 10 men's game in the city on a cool Friday evening. The home team has a reputation for having mastered the gifts of ref-targeting rhetoric, but I've never had a problem with them for one simple reason - up until tonight, they've always been the winning team. They're a lovely bunch of lads when things are going their way. But the psychologists among you will be staggered to hear that their behaviour takes a dive when the scoreboard's down. The tactics then play out as follows:

* Lost out in a fair but competitive fight for the ball? It can only be because your opponent fouled you. But the shyster masquerading as a neutral match official has failed to give it! Let him know what you think about that, and make sure you use plenty of hectic gestures and a raised voice just in case he's too dim to get the message.

Anger. Everywhere. Especially about throw-ins

Games 46-47, 2021-22

Everyone's mad about something these days. The more trivial the better. Every Saturday there are people marching through the streets of my city loudly protesting about having to wear a mask in some public places to help stop vulnerable people becoming infected with a somewhat deadly virus. In times of a brutal, senseless war and rampant, earth-destroying climate change, this is the issue these citizens are apparently mad about. All in the name of 'freedom', that vague, abused and facile justification for all kinds of entitled, small-minded, attention-seeking twattery.

On Saturday morning - on the pitch next to where I'm coaching - I see a 10-year-old goalkeeper get mad at the player who's just scored past him. He runs out of his penalty area and pushes the forward over from behind. The ref makes him apologise, which he does with very bad grace. His coach doesn't even pull him out of the game. The kid still looks mad, even after he's supposedly said sorry. Where are his Mum or Dad to give him a proper bollocking, seeing as how his coach is not concerned? Why did the ref not send him off the field to think about what he just did? Which, just to recap, was to assault an opponent in a U11 game. What will he take away from this experience other than that it's okay to get mad and physically assault your opponent when he scores against you?

When a Dad comes marching towards you after the final whistle...

Games 43-45, 2021-22

Yep, we know.

Here comes Dad. As I walk towards my changing room at the end of a very competitive boys' U13 game, I go for the direct route - avoiding the open gate where the bellicose, over-motivated parents are still gathered, and opting to duck under the fence instead. But Dad is in the midst of a determined and purposeful stride, and unless I break into an undignified trot, he's going to cut me off before I reach the changing room door. I've certainly nothing to run away from, so let's have it, Dad, what's on your tiny little mind?

"Can you give me an explanation why you gave our number 3 a five-minute time penalty?" That sounds like a reasonable request on paper, but the hectoring tone, I already know, means that Dad won't be happy with the explanation, he just wants to Have His Say.

"Sure," I say. I wait a couple of seconds to gather my thoughts, and in this short time Dad demands, "Well then, what is it?" Bear in mind, that Dad's kid's team has already won the game, 2-0. Though maybe he's still peeved that I read the riot act to the whole line of parents by exhorting them to calm down, and pointing out that the game wasn't being staged especially to mirror their genetic genius.

When a player’s sailing close to a red card

Game 42, 2021-22

“You wanted to kick me out of the game, didn’t you?” That’s not a quote from my latest match, but it’s one I’ve heard before. In fact, it’s from El Arbitro, a slightly dated but nonetheless absorbing documentary you can watch on YouTube that follows the now retired Spanish referee Miguel Pérez Lasa as he officiates a pair of La Liga games at the tail-end of the 2007-08 season. The words are yelled at him by Villareal’s defender Joan Capdevila when Pérez shows him a second yellow card in the final minutes of a 2-0 defeat at Sevilla. 

Capdevila could not be further off the mark. Pérez Lasa explains in the documentary how “I like to use the captains to warn players when they have a yellow card and are close to getting another one.” As the players are preparing to come out for the second half, the referee can be heard telling Sevilla’s captain Dani Alves to “calm [Federico] Fazio down”. The Argentine midfielder had already seen yellow and was looking like a candidate for dismissal. 

“A ref must know how to use the cards,” says Pérez Lasa. “You see the game heating up, so you have to calm the players down and let them know they have the wrong attitude.” Villarreal’s Capdevila first sees yellow in the 80th minute for a vehement, in-your-face protest about a penalty non-call. A few minutes later he’s lucky to avoid a second caution for sarcastic laughter and a dismissive gesture when Pérez Lasa awards Sevilla a penalty. And then he’s finally off for a blatant and deliberate handball in stoppage time that prevents a promising attack (Capdevila tries to claim it hit him on the knee). All unnecessary offences the player himself could easily have avoided, and nothing whatsoever to do with the referee wanting to ‘kick him out of the game’.

Two 'friendlies', two mass confrontations

Sign at Sunday's game: "Be fair to your opponent - be fair to the ref." LOL! 

Games 38-41, 2021-22

Remember last week when I asked if there was a change in the air, just because a couple of coaches expressly thanked me for turning up? What an idiot.

Let's cut straight to game 41, between two men's Level 9 teams. Even for a partially deaf man who has left his hearing aids in the changing room because of the heavy rain, the away team is jarringly loud throughout the first half. Their coach does not for a single second desist from bellowing. The players themselves mainly yell at each other (or back at the coach), occasionally at the home team (when fouled), and on one occasion at me (yellow card. Or is it the yeller card? Boom-tish). Eventually, the captain appeals to his team, "Can we all stop yelling at each other? Let's be positive! Why can't any of you actually enjoy playing football?" I offer him a short gesture of applause, but his team-mates completely ignore him.

Before the game, we stood for a minute's silence at the request of the away team on account of a bereavement. Sixty seconds to reflect upon our mortality, and to appreciate the privilege of still being alive and fit enough to be part of the game. To place a Sunday afternoon sporting event into its true perspective. To consider that we might enjoy playing football, to cite the desperate appeal from the away team's captain. How fondly I look back at this quiet moment over the next 89 minutes.

The time is perfect for radical reform

Games 34-37, 2021-22

Is change in the air? Coaches keep thanking me for showing up to referee their games. On Saturday, one coach was particularly grateful that I'd turned out "in this awful weather". Several spectators have been thanking me too. It makes me wonder if the state FA has issued a circular to all its clubs during the winter break, reminding them of the referee shortage and asking them to be extra nice. Nothing wrong with that, though such reminders don't tend to have much stamina.

Meanwhile, myself and four fellow referees took the time off during the winter break to take stock and draft our manifesto. The response from our referees' association was nothing but positive, and genuinely enthusiastic that we cared enough to go to so much effort. Outlining concrete proposals, rather than just moaning, has turned out to be the best approach. Not all these ideas fall under our refereeing body's remit, but the idea is to fire up a discussion and have them put their own modified list of suggestions to the state FA. Much of our focus is on the role of youth team coaches, because that's where the problems begin - the consequence of bad education. Here's a summary of the main points:

- an intensive campaign to protect all young and newly qualified referees from abuse, inspired by the Worcestershire FA's #seemysocks initiative. Goal: to improve awareness among clubs, and to improve long term coaching and mentoring of young refs

- transparency throughout the disciplinary process so that referees know poor and disgraceful conduct has been duly punished