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).