Abandoning a 'friendly' match due to the threat of violence. But who cares?

Game 8, 2023-24

It's only three months since a young man was killed on a football field just a couple of kilometres away from today's U19 friendly. The 15-year-old player took a punch to the back of the neck during a tournament at the end of last season, fell instantly into a coma, and died a few days later in hospital. The local football community expressed its collective shock and dismay, but for those of us refereeing on the morally rotten front line of the amateur game, the tragic outcome was the logical consequence of football's utter failure to address the issue of embedded verbal and physical violence.

Time to finally shelve The Shankly Quote

Did this mean that clubs have started the new season with a different attitude? A perhaps more reasoned, respectful approach to their opponents and officials, and one less influenced by foul tactics, dangerous tackles and instinctive confrontation? Did it fuck. And that's why I abandoned the game after 75 minutes following a mass confrontation on the pitch. I wasn't prepared to watch the threat of impending violence translate into another death.