The Fan Who Cried 'Scandal!'

Games 22-23, 2022-23

It's a sporting truth that the spectators on the touchline know the laws of the game much better than the qualified referee in the middle of the park. Accordingly, we hear from them all the time. In the second half of Sunday's game, following a corner kick cleared by the defending away team, I stay in position so that I'm standing directly in line with the defence as the home team plays the ball back into the danger area. Their number 6 is standing a yard offside, inside the 6-yard box, but moves back into an onside position to receive the pass.

He's about to turn and score when I blow my whistle and raise my arm, and of course he's frustrated. He blasts the ball out of play and curses, though not directly at me, so I don't show the yellow card - his team is five goals in arrears, so I let it go. I make the air traffic control gesture to indicate that he's come back to receive the ball from an offside position. Behind me, though, a lone spectator begins to bellow long and loud to the autumnal sky, finishing with the words, "That's an absolutely disgraceful decision! That's a scandal!" Among a crowd of maybe 60-70 people, I hope that at least one of them explains to him why he's shouting shite.

The Greatest Goal Never

A World Cup short story by Ian Plenderleith, presented by Referee Tales

Some people say that being a referee is like working in the sewers. No one wants to do it, and all you get is shit. And yet, some of us are willing to muck in where it stinks. Where there's nothing to see and smell but a torrent of human effluent. Yeah, you're welcome.

    Let me say from the start that I was sent home from the World Cup for doing my job properly. That’s the truth and the whole story in one short sentence. There is not a single piece of cinematic or photographic evidence to even suggest that I made the wrong decision. And that’s because I didn’t make the wrong decision. Ah, people say, but you couldn’t have known that at the time. Well, of course I couldn’t have known for sure at the time. It was a very close call. But every replay, no matter how much you all wished it otherwise, proved beyond any doubt that I was right to raise my flag. Each time they re-ran it, frame-by-frame in the slowest of motions, the pundits reluctantly reached the exact same conclusion. The decision was correct, and no one can ever take that away from me.