The Adventures of Captain Striker, Episode One!

Games 12-14, 2023-24

Captain Striker is a fucking hero. He must be, because he's both the captain and the striker. The bossman goal-notcher. The big cheese leading the front line, also adorned with a special armband with a CAPITAL C (for... Captain, of course!). He's shouldering so many responsibilities - to lead his team, to set an example, and to score the goals too. That Captain Striker is only playing at level nine must be some kind of terrible mistake. It's likely the football establishment has been plotting against him, but Captain Striker knows adversity and will not abjure the struggle.

I'm just about to blow the whistle to start the game when Captain Striker, standing right in front of me, asks for an extra few seconds to say "my prayer". I'm tempted to tell him he's had several hours already to say his prayer, but of course this is not about the prayer. Captain Striker is testing the waters to see if the referee harbours the necessary respect for him and his footballing superpowers. He closes his eyes and murmurs. I really have no choice but to wait for him to finish before we can all start the game.

Later, I wonder what his prayer was. If he was appealing to his Gods to finally make this the game when he didn't behave like an irritating, temperamental, belly-aching pain in the passage, then the prayer went unheard. If he was praying to be suddenly blessed with clinical finishing skills that would permit him to score an unanswered double hat-trick, then sadly that plea was also ignored. However, if his prayer went something along the lines of, "Dear invisible and unknown entity, please once again make me the biggest fucking twat on the field of play by a colossal margin", then there is indeed a power somewhere above with the magical ability to turn requests into reality.

Captain Striker's chief asset is his loud and rowdy gob. At first, it's aimed at his fallible team-mates, who must truly be inspired by their leader's repeated fury that they are failing to set him up for the goals his talented feet so deserve. But after multiple muttered commentaries about my decisions (he claims the home goalkeeper has wasted enough time to warrant "six or seven" added minutes at the end of the first half), he inevitably diverts his wrath towards me instead. The home team has scored its fourth goal of the afternoon, and Captain Striker vociferously declares it was offside by at least "five metres". Add incredible eyesight to his range of super-skills. He runs, he pleads, he screams. Maybe he even prays. The goal stands. "Talk to your number 8, he played him on," I say. He doesn't talk to number 8. That's absurd. It was the referee who caused the goal, not the number 8.

And wouldn't you know it, but just two minutes later the referee does blow for offside - only, it's against Captain Striker. By this time, he has bungled a number of prime opportunities to score. Now he accepts a nod-on from a team-mate, right in front of goal but way behind the second to last man. He roars in rage, and I can only laugh. "Look where I'm standing!" I tell him. The play came from a free-kick, so for once I'm in the perfect position. He continues to surf his wave of futile rage, getting himself a yellow card, prompting him to rage some more, so out he goes for ten minutes solo in the sin-bin. There follows a brief interlude of relative peace and harmony.

When he comes back on, Captain Striker scores a penalty to make it 5-1. Not exactly the heroics we'd been expecting, especially as he misses a second one five minutes later, and lies on the floor with his head in his hands. One final setback for the super-hero before he nets five goals in five minutes to turn the game around? Sadly not. At the final whistle, a home team player goes to apologise to him for some incident or other, and reportedly (I don't hear it), Captain Striker tells him to piss off. There follows a big row with the usual chest-shoves amid indignant cacophony, and then Captain Striker goes into the crowd and embraces his son, who looks about five years old. I wonder if I should give the kid card a red card now to save me the bother in ten years time.

Game 13: No cards, no bother. No men, except me and the away team's coach.

Game 14: Same league as Game 12. It's just before half-time and the away team is 1-0 ahead. It's an awful game, with both sides playing serial long, high balls on a shortish pitch. Yet another hoof from the back sails towards the away team's number 7, but he's a yard offside. When I blow, there's a huge uproar from the player, who runs over to tell me that, in fact, he timed his run perfectly. "Sorry, you were a second too quick off the mark," I tell him, because he was.

A minute later, the home team takes a direct free-kick from just outside the penalty area, spilled by the keeper. The striker running in for the rebound is clearly fouled by a defender before he can get to the ball. I point to the spot, and this time the outrage runs through the whole away team. Number 7 gets the card he's been craving. The penalty's converted, and on my way to the dressing room for the break, a WHIRRing sound (Whining at the Heinous Injustice of the Rubbish Referee) fills the surrounding park.

It's a lovely night - there's a soothing orange quarter moon over this ten-cent game. The air is finally cooling, but not the heads. The away team spend the entire second half complaining, convinced that I am 'against' them. There are four yellows and a time-penalty when the number 12, already booked for persistent ankle-tapping, complains loudly that the home team took a throw-in from the wrong spot. He's right, but I'd let it pass because one of number 12's team-mates had kicked the ball away to prevent a quick throw when it went out of play, and it went straight to an opponent ten yards up the line who said thank you very much and took a quick one after all. Improvised rules, street justice.

The away team is running a live ticker on the official German FA website. According to this version of the game, their team is being held back not by its inability to pass the ball, but because of the referee's shocking incompetence. The first comment on the penalty admits that it was "hard to see" if there'd been a foul or not (perhaps because the author was 50 yards away, and typing into their mobile phone?), but by half-time this has become a "dubious" call. There are numerous other snide asides about my decisions, plus ongoing outrage at that one first-half offside call. We are not allowed to know the outcomes of disciplinary proceedings against the wankers who yell at us every week, but this public commentary on a level 9 piss-kick with an amateur ref judging offside calls with no linesmen is freedom of expression. Hurrah for that. Maybe these people need an outlet, just like I do on here.

At the final whistle, it's still 1-1. "Next time, we'd be better off playing without a ref," two away players tell me, adding their sulky votes of no confidence to the player on Sunday who advised me to quit (a striking partner of Captain Striker's - his apprentice arsehole). I'd actually pay good money to come and watch these teams face off without a ref. I start to envision a Netflix series where this league plays an entire season without referees. TV execs - have your people contact mine.

"Your reffing's shit," an away spectator informs me as I walk to my changing room. "You have a nice evening too," I reply. Though I don't add what I'm thinking: "You worthless piece of shit."

Game 12: 5-2 (8 x yellow, 1 x time-penalty)

Game 13: 10-0 (no cards)
Game 14: 1-1 (4 x yellow, 1 x time-penalty)

My 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.