Have I still 'got it'?

Game 27, 2023-24
Saturday evening game, boys' U15. The home coach tells me he'd like to start on time as it's his dad's 80th. birthday, and the party's already started. Also, with a knowing laugh, "By the way, none of my lads can play football." He's not joking. The fact they win 12-0 tells you something about the quality of the opposition. Yet, the losing team plays in great spirit, and both teams smile and laugh like they're actually having a good time. Which they are. On the football pitch - just imagine! Me too. Final score: 12-0 (no cards)

Game 28

At the end of the game (girls' U15), the away team coach tells me he would have loved a penalty so that his goalkeeper could have got on the score sheet. "She hasn't scored a goal in two years," he says, like this was unusual for a goalie. I say that I didn't think the handball incident was worth a penalty, but that's not what he was talking about - it was apparently some foul or other that I can't recall. I shrug, we smile and shake hands. Final score: 0-8 (no cards)

Game 29
In the 80 minutes of this girls' U17 game (thanks to Kickers 16 for the above photo of an old fella trying to keep up with play) I blow for exactly one foul, and play advantage maybe twice. An away team player complains at length that I don't call a foul when she's been robbed fairly of the ball. As she won't shut up, eventually I ask her, "Seriously, how long do you want to talk about this for?" Her team are 7-0 up. The dissent maybe warrants a yellow card, but the game doesn't. Plus, I'm on such a roll here of games without cards, it seems a shame to spoil the sequence. Final score: 0-10 (no cards)

Game 30

A boys' U13 cup-tie. The home team has conceded one goal all season, and scored 76. When they're 2-0

"We could either be nutters, or a club where you can bring the family"

Game 43, 2017-18

Just over a year I wrote about a game where I red-carded three players from the away team on a particularly hostile afternoon, even by the standards of this region’s amateur leagues. Last October I reffed them again, with barely a problem aside from one yellow card for dissent. Yet while they had become more sanguine, they had crashed to the bottom of the league, having no points from 13 games, with an impressive Goals Against tally of 106.

Time for a change.

This past Sunday I was assigned to ref  them once more, on a well-kempt grass field surrounded by four steps of terracing. A beautiful little football ground on a stunning afternoon. Meanwhile, the team has undergone its second complete transformation in just over a year. They’re good again (having soared up to second from bottom with 21 points), but still calm. “They’ve got eight new players,” the opposition’s low-key coach tells me before the game, resigned to the fact that his side is meeting them just at the wrong time – as they're hitting form.

The Game of Moans could do with more levity

Game 22, 2016-17

"And so ends this instalment of The Game of Moans," I announce as I blow the final whistle. The player standing near me starts to laugh. "Heh, sorry about that," he says. "I know it was pretty bad today." I point out that it's always pretty bad. But really I'm just delighted that he laughed - it doesn't happen often enough on the football pitch.

Gareth and Cristiano setting an example
- football's just for fun, right guys?

Next I walk up to the home team's left back. A few minutes earlier he'd made a fairly sour comment about me needing glasses. In keeping with the Artur Alt Philosophy of "Hear less, see more", I decided to ignore him. Two weeks ago I'd have pompously show him a yellow card. "Thanks for your touching concern about my eyesight," I say, "but in fact I already wear contact lenses." For the first time all game he cracks a smile too, then shakes my hand...