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? |
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!"
Yeah, but a corner's not a penalty kick, is it? Is it? No, it's a corner. A penalty is the result of an infringement in the penalty area and results in a penalty kick taken from the penalty spot. A corner results from the defending team having put the ball out of play behind their own goal-line, and it's taken from the quarter-circle in the... corner. Two completely different things. Just thought I'd explain that in case any players are reading this.
As I walk off the field at half-time, a beer-clutching spectator suggests that it would surely just have been better to let the away team take their corner kick. Why? So that the home team could concede the equalising goal and then yell at me that the half was already finished? Had I not indicated well over three minutes ago that there were only two minutes to play? Did I, the referee, not even know the Laws of the Game?
Of course, there are plenty of FIFA Laws we ignore all the time to make everybody's lives easier. You need to let the game flow and not come across as a nit-picky twat who's out to win a golden penis for pedantry. In this case, though, I can see no good reason not to apply the law, other than to avoid players going berserk. But they go berserk all the time in the adult leagues, so that's no criterion for inaction.
Indeed, during the first half the away team and their entire bench have been in perpetual uproar over my offside calls. Today I abjure all drama and ignore them, standing with my arm raised and giving a beatific 'the ref knows better' smile, just to piss them off even more. "Don't yell at me," I say to one player. "It wasn't me who was three yards offside."
I'm never sure if this outrage is a genuine belief that I'm an incompetent wanker who doesn't know offside from a plate of fish and chips, or a concerted attempt to intimidate me and hope that I'll be hesitant to whistle the next offside call. If that's the idea, it doesn't work. With the score at 2-2 and just a few minutes to play, the away team scores what would have been the winning goal. Except, it's offside. This time, strangely enough, the protests are curt and at the level of the spoken word. Maybe they're knackered from all that moaning. Or maybe even they could see that the goal scorer had come back to take the ball from a clear offside position.
One fine sporting moment from the previous afternoon's U17 game. The only punishment is for a hard foul against the away team's captain (already warned for a previous foul), followed by a five-minute time penalty for his bellicose insistence that crashing into an opponent from behind is not a punishable offence. At half-time he comes to apologise and to shake hands. The rest of the game is peaceful.
As I walk off the field at half-time, a beer-clutching spectator suggests that it would surely just have been better to let the away team take their corner kick. Why? So that the home team could concede the equalising goal and then yell at me that the half was already finished? Had I not indicated well over three minutes ago that there were only two minutes to play? Did I, the referee, not even know the Laws of the Game?
Of course, there are plenty of FIFA Laws we ignore all the time to make everybody's lives easier. You need to let the game flow and not come across as a nit-picky twat who's out to win a golden penis for pedantry. In this case, though, I can see no good reason not to apply the law, other than to avoid players going berserk. But they go berserk all the time in the adult leagues, so that's no criterion for inaction.
Indeed, during the first half the away team and their entire bench have been in perpetual uproar over my offside calls. Today I abjure all drama and ignore them, standing with my arm raised and giving a beatific 'the ref knows better' smile, just to piss them off even more. "Don't yell at me," I say to one player. "It wasn't me who was three yards offside."
I'm never sure if this outrage is a genuine belief that I'm an incompetent wanker who doesn't know offside from a plate of fish and chips, or a concerted attempt to intimidate me and hope that I'll be hesitant to whistle the next offside call. If that's the idea, it doesn't work. With the score at 2-2 and just a few minutes to play, the away team scores what would have been the winning goal. Except, it's offside. This time, strangely enough, the protests are curt and at the level of the spoken word. Maybe they're knackered from all that moaning. Or maybe even they could see that the goal scorer had come back to take the ball from a clear offside position.
One fine sporting moment from the previous afternoon's U17 game. The only punishment is for a hard foul against the away team's captain (already warned for a previous foul), followed by a five-minute time penalty for his bellicose insistence that crashing into an opponent from behind is not a punishable offence. At half-time he comes to apologise and to shake hands. The rest of the game is peaceful.
Game 7: 1-0 (no cards)
Game 8: 9-3 (1 x yellow, 1 x time-penalty)
Game 9: 2-2 (5 x yellow)
My book 'Reffing Hell: Stuck in the Middle of a Game Gone Wrong' has just been come off the presses thanks to Halcyon. Please buy a copy if you would like to support this blog and independent publishing.
Game 8: 9-3 (1 x yellow, 1 x time-penalty)
Game 9: 2-2 (5 x yellow)
My book 'Reffing Hell: Stuck in the Middle of a Game Gone Wrong' has just been come off the presses thanks to Halcyon. Please buy a copy if you would like to support this blog and independent publishing.
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