Another weekend of managing mass confrontations

Games 44-46, 2022-23

One of our refereeing overlords last month mused out loud to a room full of over-worked and underpaid amateur referees that he and his colleagues had come up with a theory why player behaviour in one of our neighbouring cities was better than in ours. They'd determined it was because the referees there were stricter about enforcing the proper dress code for players. Correctly coloured under-garments, for example.

Post kick-off, pre-brawl (pic N. Lotze)

He was serious. "We need to stop moaning about how bad things are and concentrate more on the smaller details," he said, in the context of yet more threats and physical attacks in our youth and amateur leagues. The thinking (if you can call it that) was that if you show you're in charge right from the start, the players will have more respect for you. Rather than getting the impression, say, that you're a pernickety twat with delusions of Bundesliga.

As it happens, I almost always insist on the correct dress code (yes, I can be a pernickety twat), although it's not an issue that comes up often. Sometimes, on a very cold day in a bottom-feeder league, I'll be lenient. Either way, it makes absolutely no difference to the low levels of respect accorded to me and my colleagues, in this city or the next one, or any of the other many one-pub towns and villages in between.

Loud Arsehole Dad - meet Loud Arsehole Mum!

Games 27-29, 2022-23

Remember last weekend's sportsmanlike spectator of the day, Loud Arsehole Dad (LAD)? This past Saturday's U15 game yielded another example of this hopefully dying species. Throughout an otherwise entirely peaceful first half, LAD screams about call after call. I ignore him, because there's nothing wrong with my calls, and nothing to discuss. At half-time, I even text a fellow ref: "Very quiet except for one really loud dad everyone's ignoring. Twat."

As we're taking the field for the second half, the home team's number 9 cheerfully tells me, "Sorry about my dad on the touchline there. Don't worry about him, he's nuts." I reply that I'd been wondering which player he was attached to, though I don't mention that just a couple of minutes ago I'd referred to him in a text message as a twat. The number 9's a nice lad, though, and scores two goals in the second half. In a happy parallel to last week's game, the next generation seems to be learning from the LADs - here's the model bad parent showing you how not to behave. Good job, dad!

I'd reffed the away team just four days earlier in a testy cup tie. Two of their players ended up with cautions in that game - one for his part in a hormone-driven face-off, and one for a nasty foul. They remember me fine, and as we're going through the player's ID passes, I mention to both players that I'd hate to have to take their names for the second time in a week. Their team-mates laugh, and they all behave perfectly for the entire 70 minutes, despite getting hammered 5-0 in a game to decide who goes top of the division.

Dissent - football's festering verbal disease

Games 11-14, 2022-23

Dissent. Never-ending dissent. I would enjoy refereeing ten times more if players would just shut up and play. If they would only learn that moaning about a decision will not prompt me to change my mind, but it will prompt me to recall Law 12 and its rectangular yellow sanction for theatrical gesticulation and runaway gobs.

Half-time event (see below)

How I love games without dissent. Like the two intense, hard-fought midweek cup ties last week - a U17 and a U19 game - where there was an almost complete absence of moaning. The one player booked for dissent over the two games came and shook my hand after the final whistle, said thank you, and even smiled.

There are teams that take you seriously when you show no mercy for their lack of respect. In Saturday's U19 boys' league game, I lecture to one complaining home team player, "My name is not 'Ref', to you it's Mr. Referee, and you will keep your mouth closed and accept my decisions for the rest of the afternoon." It doesn't even need that stupid little yellow card to come out of my pocket - that's it with the dissent until the fifth and final minute of stoppage time.

The home team's leading 5-4 and are taking the ball to the corner flag. When the ball goes out of play, I indicate a throw-in for the hosts. The away team's left back unleashes a torrent of abuse in my direction. I

Two 'friendlies', two mass confrontations

Sign at Sunday's game: "Be fair to your opponent - be fair to the ref." LOL! 

Games 38-41, 2021-22

Remember last week when I asked if there was a change in the air, just because a couple of coaches expressly thanked me for turning up? What an idiot.

Let's cut straight to game 41, between two men's Level 9 teams. Even for a partially deaf man who has left his hearing aids in the changing room because of the heavy rain, the away team is jarringly loud throughout the first half. Their coach does not for a single second desist from bellowing. The players themselves mainly yell at each other (or back at the coach), occasionally at the home team (when fouled), and on one occasion at me (yellow card. Or is it the yeller card? Boom-tish). Eventually, the captain appeals to his team, "Can we all stop yelling at each other? Let's be positive! Why can't any of you actually enjoy playing football?" I offer him a short gesture of applause, but his team-mates completely ignore him.

Before the game, we stood for a minute's silence at the request of the away team on account of a bereavement. Sixty seconds to reflect upon our mortality, and to appreciate the privilege of still being alive and fit enough to be part of the game. To place a Sunday afternoon sporting event into its true perspective. To consider that we might enjoy playing football, to cite the desperate appeal from the away team's captain. How fondly I look back at this quiet moment over the next 89 minutes.

The perpetual question for amateur referees: "Why the fuck do I bother?"

Games 18-19, 2021-22

Lock him up.

Imagine you're reading a book, sitting peacefully on a bench by a quiet river on a still afternoon, when someone stops in front of you and starts to yell in your face, "Ian McEwan? IAN FUCKING MCEWAN? What are you reading that shit for, you idiot - you should be reading David Keenan's This Is Memorial Device!" Or you're hiking the Pennine Way from Steel Rig to Bellingham when another walker stops you and screams, "You didn't take the detour for the view from Cuddy Crags, and to look at the excavated Roman fort at Housesteads? WHAT THE FUCK IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?"

I'm just trying to think of another hobby apart from refereeing where you'd have to put up with a similar level of loud verbal abuse. Just recently I'd had a run of games which - while they were not exactly peaceful- were definitely under control, and I was really starting to enjoy football again. Then came a match last Thursday night that set me back and left me feeling crushed. As I wrote in a somewhat tired and frustrated state after the game on Twitter: "An absolutely miserable men's game tonight - fouling, moaning about every decision, diving, players squaring up, spurious offside appeals. Back to the basic question: why the fuck do I bother?" 

The tweet has had an unprecedented 57 'likes' (roughly ten times my average), which suggests that it resonated among fellow refs. I'd just come off filing the statutory match report (goal scorers, substitutions, cautions etc.), but had opted against a disciplinary report because I was mentally exhausted. But there's also a section in the report for 'Particular Incidents'. We've been expressly told not to write about disciplinary matters in this box because it's supposed to be for irregularities with player passes, serious injuries etc., but I was in the mood to vent, so I wrote the following:

"Massive bundle in the 75th. minute...

All the Crap and the Chaos: one weekend in the life of an amateur referee

Games 10-11, 2021-22

"Calm the fuck down..." (pic: Natascha Lotze)

Saturday 4pm. Boys U19 match in the city's east park. It's a beautiful autumn day, there are multiple pick-up games, families grilling food, dog-walkers and drinkers hanging out at the kiosk. The home club is friendly, the away team remembers me too. I've not given a penalty all season, but towards the end of the first half the home team gets two in three minutes, both of them unnecessary fouls, and both greeted without a single complaint. The only other incident of note is when a home player yells at me after he's been fouled and I've already whistled for the free-kick. His coach tells him to calm down, I give him a yellow and a stern ticking off. A mostly fair and stress-free game. Pay: €14.

6.48pm. Tomorrow I'm due to ref a men's game in another city at 3pm. I receive an e-mail from one of my assignors saying that "unfortunately, we're losing refs in droves, so I'm asking you to take on a youth game tomorrow morning at 11am, otherwise this game won't be covered. Lots of other refs are doing two games tomorrow." I write back pointing out the physical impossibility of me finishing that game at 1pm and then making it to a different city in time for kick-off at 3pm. I don't hear back from him, but am left somehow feeling guilty that I've turned him down...

The Game from Hell

Games 31-32, 2018-19

The home team is coached by an old friend of this blog, 'Danny'. I intuit before the game that it's not going to be a quiet afternoon. When Danny's on the touchline, it never is. When we met in March I let him get to me. Today I resolve to remain absolutely calm, no matter how much shit this U19 match-up propels in my direction. By the end of the afternoon, I'm indeed in fecal heaven.

The game kicks off.

The away coach tells me before the game that when the two teams met earlier this season, Danny hounded and intimidated the young referee throughout the game. It's the same story I've heard now from three other coaches in this league. Just to recap, it's over three years since Danny and I sat in front of a disciplinary panel and he was fined €150 and told they didn't want to see his face there again. Yet to no one's surprise he's still here, a malignant cancerous growth on the city's already diseased amateur football scene. 

I gather all four coaches in the centre circle to remind them of the punishment process for irresponsible behaviour. First warning, then the second and final warning, followed by dismissal. They all nod, except for Danny. "Did you get that, Danny?" He gives a token gesture of the head, but I can't read his expression - he's wearing reflective sun-glasses to go with his hipster beard, giving off the usual air of 'I don't give a fuck'.

Neither do the teams, who go at each other right from the off. There are obviously numerous scores waiting to be settled from the first game...

Anger, dissent and a mass brawl - another night out with the Reserves

Game 18, 2018-19

Nice smooth surface on a beautiful
spring night - we'll soon fuck that shit up.

Good news for pedlars of anger - supplies are still running high. There is absolutely no shortage.  In fact, anger levels seem to be going through the shattered glass skylight. As I wrote in my game report, "For the away team, I recommend an immediate and urgent course of fury control therapy." I'm absolutely sure they will take my advice.

A relegation battle in the League of ragged Reserves, football's abandoned grave-pit where you will find only the cluttered, dehydrated bones of the game's sporting values. Too old? Play in the Reserves. No discipline? We'll drop you down to the stiffs. No fucking use at all? We'll call you when we're short, on a Thursday night at the butt-end of another failed season... 

Like Groundhog Day without the punchlines

Game 17, 2018-19

It's been a year or two since I last encountered 'Danny', the city's loudest youth coach, and when I saw his name on the team-sheet of the away team for a U19 game last weekend I wasn't exactly leaping through the air and pumping my fists at the thought of an emotional reunion. Still, everyone has the opportunity to change. Although in the times we'd met since I was a witness three years ago to him receiving a fat fine and a heavy warning from the disciplinary panel for unacceptable behaviour on the touchline, he hadn't changed one bit. 

"Hey, Danny - great to see you again!"

Sure enough, Danny has coached a team in his model image. Right from the start they foul their opponents, and then complain loudly when I whistle. They are backed up by Danny on the touchline, who screams, "Referee!" every single time. It's an obvious ploy to intimidate both their opponents and the ref. By half-time they have three yellow cards - one for foul play and two for dissent. I've spoken to Danny twice and given him his first two warnings of the afternoon. Does he listen and shut up? Does he fuck.