Have I had a bad game? Or was I just made to feel that way?

Game 40, 2022-23

It's one of those days for the home team. With five minutes to go, they're six goals in arrears. Following a scramble from a corner kick, they have a looping shot headed off the line by an away team defender. They appeal loudly for the goal, but without technology or an assistant on the touchline, there is absolutely no way to tell if the ball was fully over the line or not. I wave play on. The away team launch a smart counter-attack and, 20 seconds later, it's 0-7 instead of 1-6.

It's safe to say that the home team is no fan of me as a referee. In the first half, they complain bitterly that the visitors' second goal should be cancelled out due to an offside in the build-up. "Two meters!" they claim, like this exact measurement backs up their case. It's always that massive two meters, to emphasis my total wrongness. They would never say it was offside "by at least a centimetre". Absolute conviction must batter all doubt when addressing the clueless ref.

The home team's coach is also having trouble with my calls. When his defender lunges into a straight-legged tackle right in front of the home bench, I whistle for a free-kick, despite the defender having won the ball while nailing the man. The coach is predictably incensed and raves away until I appeal for him to calm down. "CALM? WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" he barks. That means you get to see this plastic yellow rectangle held up before your eyes. It's clinically proven to induce calm.

There are two more yellows for dissent - one on each team - during a fractious first half. The players can't believe they are not allowed to bellow their lengthy opinions in my face. One of them has a go at me after he's fouled, and I play advantage. The advantage doesn't accrue, and so I call play back for the foul. A matter of one second, at most. Even when I explain this to the fouled player, he won't let off moaning, despite having got the damned free-kick. Here, have one of my calming cards of caution.

At half-time, the home coach still wants to talk about why his defender did not commit a foul when he went into a tackle with a straight leg and his studs to the fore. I explain it again. It doesn't help. "Well, maybe today you just got a shit ref," I say. "I didn't say you were a shit ref," he replies. "I know you didn't. But I'm saying, maybe today you got one." I'm sounding impatient and vaguely unhinged (which I can be - it's not just the players), and this works in warning him off.

In the second-half, at 0-4, a home team forward rounds the keeper and then goes down with a defender challenging. No contact, and there's only a loud appeal from the home players, but nothing at all from the by now possibly embarrassed home crowd - they are all standing about 10 meters above field height, so have a good view of the game. Afterwards, someone in the bar stops me to ask, "Shouldn't that have been a yellow and an indirect free-kick for the dive?" No doubt, I say, but with the scoreline as it was, I just let play continue to avoid any more grief from the home team. I call it: aggro management.

I walk away from the ground feeling that I've had a miserable game, simply because that's the way the home team has made me feel. At the train station, which is a 20-minute walk from the ground, a spectator recognises me and we start to talk. He's the father of one of the players on the away team, and comes to support his son every weekend, no matter where the team's playing. They're pushing for promotion to the seventh level (today's win takes them second), and he tells me that the club's more than ready to take the next step.

Which player was your son, I ask? The number 22, he says. You cautioned him! Ah, he was unlucky, I say - it was his first foul. But there had been a whole series of fouls beforehand from various team-mates, so I told him he was taking one for the team. Persistent foul play. Absolutely in order, says my new friend. When I tell him I feel that I had a bad game, he counters that I managed it really well, and was absolutely correct on all the major decisions, including the 'offside' goal and the ball that didn't cross the line. One or two minor errors, he adds with a shrug, but that's standard in a game without assistants. (This is good news. I mean, who wants to be perfect?)

It does me good to talk to someone sane. He also tells me that he used to play level-3 football around 30 years ago, and we talk about what's changed in the game to make the disrespect so toxic and universal. "It's everywhere," he says, "not just in football." He works in the legal field, and has seen several cases brought against individuals for assaulting referees.

By the time we part ways, we've talked for almost an hour, and my mood has completely changed from 'ready to pack it in yet again' to 'seems I had an okay game after all'. If only there was post-match therapy every week with a level-headed observer.

Final score: 0-7 (6 x yellow)

You can hear me talking about refereeing and my new book 'Reffing Hell: Stuck in the Middle of a Game Gone Wrong'  here. It 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. Thank you!