Two good games trigger the same old optimism...

Games 31-32, 2022-23

Taking a long break from work is usually a good thing, and that applies to refereeing as well. The Dread from six weeks ago is gone, and I can't explain really where it came from and how it's disappeared again. It's still as cold as it was back in December, and the skies are just as discouraging, but now there's a feeling that soon it will be February, and then we can say, "Next month, it's spring..." It helped that I had two almost perfect games to start off the second half of the season.

"Everything I learnt about the
morality and obligations of man..."

Here's how an amateur football game should play out. It should be hard, fast and intense, and the players should be serious enough about winning. There are fouls and a couple of flash-points, but the referee is on top of things to keep everyone calm, even those whose tempers flicker or flare. Offside decisions, and their inherent fallibility, are broadly accepted. At the end of the game, everyone shakes hands, and the coaches and players from both teams thank you for coming out on such a cold afternoon.

That's how these two matches played out. True, they were friendlies, but the archive of this blog alone proves that the 'friendly' label is like a sticker saying 'refreshing and child-safe' on a bottle of absinthe. But both encounters were immensely enjoyable to ref. Which means that there's not much to write about here besides standard stuff like the odd moan or two, a minor scrap, and a couple of nasty fouls. And for that I'm really grateful.

There is nothing I'd love more than to mothball this blog and sign off on it as a historical document reflecting a past age when sportsmanship was in the bin. A time when barely a week passed without me either doubting myself as a competent match official, or questioning the purpose of football as a mass recreational weekend pastime aimed at promoting health and generating pleasure.

It will take more than two successive quiet afternoons to confine my keyboard to the attic, I fear. Again, previous blog entries testify to my occasional bouts of naive optimism following a few games that were mainly incident-free. And they often come at the start of a season or just after the winter break, when teams possibly re-set and resolve to take a new approach to the game. A more sporting, more focused approach. Just like many of us start the New Year swearing off alcohol and rummaging in the drawer for our gym membership card.

And yet, without that optimism, there would be no point in showing up at all. "Why does man, sensing the absurdity of existence, simply not commit suicide?" was the existentialist question that drove the writings of Albert Camus. You could say that this blog asks the question, "Why do players (and referees), sensing the absurdity of sporting endeavour, simply not quit the game and spend their weekends reading Albert Camus instead?"

Because then I wouldn't have experienced a coach whose team had just lost 4-0 coming up to thank me and saying that I had an excellent game. Just seconds after I was needlessly thinking, "Oh, fuck, the coach whose team has just lost 4-0 is walking right towards me." Try not to forget that traumatic days will be balanced out by rewarding games. Cling on to the faith, or stay at home.

Game 31: 1-4 (1 x yellow)
Game 32: 4-0 (4 x yellow)

My new book 'Reffing Hell: Stuck in the Middle of a Game Gone Wrong' documents six years of whistling torment, tears and occasional ecstasy. Please buy a copy direct from Halcyon if you would like to support this blog and independent publishing.

The dread in my head

Game 30, 2022-23

Dread. It’s not a positive emotion. It’s what you feel on the way to a job interview or before a major exam. When the phone rings in the middle of the night. When you turn on the news to hear that the war in Ukraine has escalated, and that the glaciers are melting way too fast. When your partner says, ‘We need to talk.’ It’s what you feel when Scotland play the Faroe Islands.

It shouldn’t be what you feel when you’re on your way to referee a game of amateur football.

There’s nothing special about this game. It does not involve difficult clubs that I’ve had a bad experience with in the past. There’s nothing in the Fair Play table to suggest that this game will be any more or less fraught than any other game I’ve ever taken at Level 8. There’s been no warning from a colleague about an especially explosive coach or a gobby captain. There is no rational foundation to my dread. Nonetheless, it’s there. All morning.

It's the last game of 2022. It’s a very cold Sunday in mid-December, and it’s snowed overnight, maybe an inch or so. I check my schedule and see that the game is set to be played on artificial turf, considerably reducing the chances of it getting called off. It’s an overwhelmingly grey day, and I have to get the train to take me half an hour out of town. But that isn’t the reason for the dread, this tugging, gut-based fear that something very bad’s going to happen. That I’m going to fuck up a major decision. A decision that will make a lot of people go red in the face and loud in the mouth.