Yet another series of Mad Men

Games 52-53, 2023-24

I'm reffing a boys' U13 promotion playoff game - intensive, hectic etc. The home team is leading 2-1 with three minutes to go. The losing team is pressing, but creating nothing, and every time they lose the ball the home team launches a counter-attack. On one such attack, the away team's number 5 deliberately holds the home team's very skilful number 17 and brings him down. He did the same thing five minutes earlier, a clear tactical foul which drew a (verbal) yellow card. For this second offence, I sanction him with the five-minute time penalty.

The foul happens right in front of the away team bench. There's a three-man coaching team, who've been randomly vocal throughout the game about the odd decision, but nothing out of the norm. So far, I've ignored them, but punished the team's deliberate physical play (shoving, holding, tripping, shirt-pulling) with a stream of free-kicks and a couple of cautions. This last entirely warranted punishment, though, is like holding a naked flame to a warehouse of paraffin-doused polyester.

All three of them instantly freak out. It was "just a foul", how can it possibly warrant a time-penalty? Also, I've been biased against their team "the whole game"! It seems that coaching your charges to deliberately foul is not expected to invite the referee's intervention. There must be some sort of rule I've never seen or heard of that you have to call fouls 50-50. Anything else is unfair. They are so abrasive that I show the head coach a yellow card, and take the game to its conclusion. While the three cranially-hindered hotheads now scream at every decision against them, the game meanders to its logical end - a victory for the superior and far more sporting home side.

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

Upset about nothing

Games 5-7, 2023-24

My hobby is upsetting people. I don't mean that I set out to upset. It's not my hobby in itself to upset people. It just so happens that what I do in my free time makes a lot of people angry. I know this makes no sense. I know that I should seriously consider finding another hobby. I don't like upsetting people.

Game of Rage

In Game 5, I upset the home team's captain. Fifteen minutes earlier, I was shaking his hand and agreeing that we wanted a nice, calm game, because it's a friendly. Both sides are near-neighbours and will be having a barbecue afterwards. Unleash the doves of peace! And yet here he is, yelling in my face. What have I done to upset him? I blew my whistle and gave a penalty to the other team, just because he up-ended an away team forward who was shaping up to shoot. I'm five yards away. Only the captain complains, loudly and in my face.

And yet, if I hadn't called the penalty, the other team would have been upset. It's so hard to keep everyone happy.

Referee's Bingo - a game within a game

Game 47, 2022-23

In my head, I've been playing Referee's Bingo for years. During the course of 90 minutes, certain aspects of a game are destined for repetition, week after week. The stands may be empty, but there's almost always a Full House. Sunday's match proved to be another one that scored high. Let me share with you my Bingo Card.

Time to play...

* Passing the ball around at the back for the first two minutes. Do we have to? Every week? Yes, I know, the players are getting a feel for the ball, and that the two teams are sizing each other up. But why can't we just skip this bit and cut straight to the first long ball in the third minute? You wonder if the coaches discuss this beforehand - a mutual deal to make themselves look like Pep. A poor man's, 9th. Level tiki-taka. Please let it be over. Oh, good, the big number 6 has got bored as me and welted it down the pitch. BINGO!

* A perfectly good goal, followed by an outraged defender appealing for offside. In the 16th. minute the away team's number 10 runs on to a through-ball, dribbles round the keeper and scores. The home team's number 8 is incensed. Not at his own poor positional sense and lack of speed, but at the referee. He screams from somewhere deep inside of his soul: "Referee! Fucking hell, that was offside!"

Have I had a bad game? Or was I just made to feel that way?

Game 40, 2022-23

It's one of those days for the home team. With five minutes to go, they're six goals in arrears. Following a scramble from a corner kick, they have a looping shot headed off the line by an away team defender. They appeal loudly for the goal, but without technology or an assistant on the touchline, there is absolutely no way to tell if the ball was fully over the line or not. I wave play on. The away team launch a smart counter-attack and, 20 seconds later, it's 0-7 instead of 1-6.

It's safe to say that the home team is no fan of me as a referee. In the first half, they complain bitterly that the visitors' second goal should be cancelled out due to an offside in the build-up. "Two meters!" they claim, like this exact measurement backs up their case. It's always that massive two meters, to emphasis my total wrongness. They would never say it was offside "by at least a centimetre". Absolute conviction must batter all doubt when addressing the clueless ref.

The home team's coach is also having trouble with my calls. When his defender lunges into a straight-legged tackle right in front of the home bench, I whistle for a free-kick, despite the defender having won the ball while nailing the man. The coach is predictably incensed and raves away until I appeal for him to calm down. "CALM? WHAT'S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" he barks. That means you get to see this plastic yellow rectangle held up before your eyes. It's clinically proven to induce calm.

When referees don't help their own cause

Game 39, 2022-23

Before we get to Game 39, let's wind back a day to the girls' U14 team that I coach, playing in a 7-a-side league. It's almost always very sporting and low stress, which is what I love about it. The referee is about my age, very chatty and friendly. The girls take an instant liking to his approach. He notes their first names down on his game card, so that he can address any issues with them on an informal basis. They've taken off all their jewelry - ear-rings, necklaces and bracelets - and placed them in the valuables bag with their smartphones. One of the girls on the other team has her ear-rings taped over, which is specifically mentioned in the rules as not being permitted, but no one here needs an arsehole to point this out, and frankly I don't give a shit.

Dangerous jewelry...

At the end of the half-time interval we are all chatting cosily with the ref (despite us being 5-0 down) when he notices that one of my players hasn't removed a wafer-thin string bracelet that had been concealed by her long-sleeved under-armour - she'd simply overlooked it. No problem, she removes it straightaway, even though it's impossible that such an item would have caused an injury. And then, our super-friendly ref does something that we take a second to register. He takes out his yellow card and brandishes it with a stiffened arm right in front of the 14-year-old sinner. Ha ha, very funny! This ref's a hoot! Except he's one hundred per cent serious, and - exhibiting a strange transformation in his hitherto genial personality - tells us in no uncertain terms why he "has to" give this card, because it says so in the rules, and then he gets all shirty when I try to gently disagree. Eventually, I turn my back on him to stop myself from raising my voice into pompous 'I'm a referee too!' territory.

We are all doomed to Level 11. Get used to it

Games 35-37, 2022-23

A busy weekend with three games in three days, and plenty going on. Two good, enjoyable matches (both men's league games), and one absolute shit-show (boys' U19 friendly). Some new situations, and lots of the same old crap, mainly moaning about offside decisions. 

Friday night lights (pic: Helmut Güsten)

FRIDAY:
Players not knowing the rules, Part 1
During the first half of this Level 10 game, a home team defender comes up with the standard passive-aggressive, "Referee, I have a question." I ignore him, but he complains anyway. When the guests just re-started the game from the centre spot after conceding a goal, they played the ball forwards! At half-time I seek him out and mention his complaint. "You have to watch out for that," he tells me. Why, I said? Since when has it been against the rules to play the ball forward from a kick-off? Oh, he replies, his indignant and confrontational attitude now replaced with mild surprise. Is it allowed?

Offside, Part 1
As we're coming out for the second half the home team players mention in refreshingly friendly tones that the goal they conceded in the first half should have been annulled for offside because an opponent was directly in front of the keeper, blocking his view. In retrospect, I tell them that I think they have a point, although the keeper would never have saved the ball even if he'd had a full view of it. "That one's on me," I say, and they laugh. It helps that they're 3-1 up, but the courtesy and the absence of any malice is a big plus.

"You should quit refereeing"

Games 33-34, 2022-23

"You should quit refereeing." The advice comes from a 17-year-old central defender at the end of a game where his team has lost by eight goals. He'd also been dismissed for his third bookable offence, having picked up a yellow card for dissent, a five-minute time penalty for a serious foul, and then a yellow-red card for upending an opponent in the penalty area just three minutes after returning to the field. So you can see why he'd want me to hang up my whistle. His football career would surely be advancing much quicker if referees would only wave play on every time he yells at them or kicks an opponent.

"Ref, if I could just give you some advice..."

That was the U19 game on a Saturday evening. The next morning, under a cold and depressing rain, I'm back out refereeing an U17 match. There are three yellow cards in the first six minutes:

1' The home team's number 8 takes out an opponent with the game's very first tackle. Me (loudly): "Are you off your head? That's not how we're playing the game here today."

4' The away team's number 17 in central defence fouls the same forward twice in two minutes after he's been out-dribbled. "Two fouls already," I call out as I brandish the card. He doesn't foul again.

6' The away team's number 9 is tripped, but when the home player apologises and offers him a hand up, the number 9 squares up to him instead. Time for another short lecture, and a yellow for unsportsmanlike conduct. He can't believe it, of course. He was the one who was fouled.

The dread in my head

Game 30, 2022-23

Dread. It’s not a positive emotion. It’s what you feel on the way to a job interview or before a major exam. When the phone rings in the middle of the night. When you turn on the news to hear that the war in Ukraine has escalated, and that the glaciers are melting way too fast. When your partner says, ‘We need to talk.’ It’s what you feel when Scotland play the Faroe Islands.

It shouldn’t be what you feel when you’re on your way to referee a game of amateur football.

There’s nothing special about this game. It does not involve difficult clubs that I’ve had a bad experience with in the past. There’s nothing in the Fair Play table to suggest that this game will be any more or less fraught than any other game I’ve ever taken at Level 8. There’s been no warning from a colleague about an especially explosive coach or a gobby captain. There is no rational foundation to my dread. Nonetheless, it’s there. All morning.

It's the last game of 2022. It’s a very cold Sunday in mid-December, and it’s snowed overnight, maybe an inch or so. I check my schedule and see that the game is set to be played on artificial turf, considerably reducing the chances of it getting called off. It’s an overwhelmingly grey day, and I have to get the train to take me half an hour out of town. But that isn’t the reason for the dread, this tugging, gut-based fear that something very bad’s going to happen. That I’m going to fuck up a major decision. A decision that will make a lot of people go red in the face and loud in the mouth.

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.

It's a corner. It's also half-time. What happens next?

Games 7-9, 2022-23

It's still warm, so after the 30-minute mark a lot of players are asking me how long until half-time. Just before the break, and with no injury time planned, I hold up two fingers and bellow loudly, "Two minutes!" for the benefit of players, coaches and spectators alike. And for me too, so that no one asks again.

A corner. But where is everyone?

The final passage of play takes us 30 seconds over the 45-minute mark, and the ball goes out for a corner to the away team. Acting in accordance with the Laws of the Game, I blow for half-time, and every referee alive will know what happens next - screams of outrage from the away team. "But we've got a corner!"

When you explain the rules to a player who's telling you with bulging eyes that they know better, here's what never happens: they calm down and say, "Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for putting me right, ref." In reality, they get even angrier. So if you tell them that the only reason to extend a half beyond the allotted time is to take a penalty kick, they will still look at you like you pissed in their kit bag and shout, "But we've got a corner!"

Games go well when coaches know discipline

Games 5-6, 2022-23

It's still hot, so we're having a drinks break, 23 minutes in. The score's 0-0 in the first Level 9 league game of the season. I walk over to a bucket of water by the touchline to cool myself off. Three elderly gentlemen are sitting on a bench behind the barrier.

"Just thought you should know," one of them says. "But our number 7 wasn't offside."

"Thanks for the tip."

"You're welcome."

(Holding up the whistle) "Do you fancy a go with this? Then I can come and sit in the shade for the rest of the afternoon?"

They know the rules (photo: imb)

We will never know for sure whether the number 7 was offside or not, but the player's opinion of my decision will be always marked in the record books by a yellow card for dissent. It's an early one (15 minutes on the clock), and no one on his team yells at me after that. The guests have their own moaner, the number 14 midfielder, and he gets an entry in my note-book just before half-time. If all the first half energy from players sounding off at their team-mates was converted into football skill, we'd be witnessing a classic. As it is, we go into the break goalless, having heard and seen nothing but vented fury and wayward balls.

Drinks break, second half. The home team is by now 2-0 up. I walk over to the same bucket and ask the three wise men if they've seen any more refereeing errors. 

Another fraught episode of the Refereeing Reality Show

Games 23-26, 2021-22

Some weekends I feel like I'm living in a referee's version of The Truman Show, and that the games I'm assigned are merely staged to provoke drama for the sake of my viewing figures and the delight of a sofa-based audience high on popcorn and catastrophe. I already knew before Sunday's game (26) - a Level 8 local diaspora derby between two clubs not known for taking a placid approach to sport - that it would be a tough afternoon. Even with all my experience of football in this city, though, I wasn't expecting enough material for a five-act play. A sole blog entry can barely do this game justice. I'll try to stick to the highlights.

1. The Suspended Player. The away team's side includes a player (the number 3) I red-carded back in August. One of the team officials recognises me before the match, and while we chat I ask him how long the player was suspended for. Six weeks, he replies, and the club only let him return after that because he'd begged them and pleaded for mercy - this red card hadn't been his first. "He's a good player but has absolutely no mental control," is the club official's assessment. Curiously, just before kick-off, another of the away team's officials asks me if I can make the player's name 'non-public' in the match report. Why? "He just doesn't want his name out there." Hmmm, okay.

2. The Brothers. There's a brother on each team, and this is the first time they've ever played against each other. "I promised our mum I would take him out with a wild tackle - just once," the older one says. "He needs taking down a peg or two." All in jest, of course. But just to be on the safe side I say, "Of course you can, as long as you don't mind taking the yellow card that comes with it." A very 'ref' thing to say - I'm great fun at parties, honest. 

3. The Crowd. There are over 300 spectators in the small ground. It's the same place where I reffed The Game From Hell. It's also the place where I oversaw the expulsion of several spectators a few years back during a reserve team game, for anti-Semitic abuse aimed at the city's only Jewish team. It's compulsory for clubs to designate two stewards in yellow jackets to keep order. Today there are five.

4. The Opening Minute. The home team's number 7 scores within seconds of the start, but he's offside. There's no dispute about the decision, but he immediately gets into a verbal and physical confrontation with his direct opponent, who is... the number 3 (see above). "Is there a problem here already?" I ask. Instead of shaking hands and assuring me there's not, they keep arguing. I show them both yellow cards. The game is 40 seconds old...

Screwed up a major call? Best to just confess

Game 15, 2020-21

"Why on earth didn't you award us a penalty when their goalkeeper fouled our forward?" I'm chatting with the home team's coach after the game. He's smiling, he's friendly, and it's a perfectly reasonable question. If his team had been given the penalty and converted it, they'd have likely taken all three points against the league leaders, instead of just one. 

 

I tell him the truth. That I didn't see it. That at the exact moment the forward was dribbling around the goalkeeper, my view was suddenly blocked by a retreating defender. The next thing I knew, both keeper and forward were on the floor, the ball had rolled out of play, and the home team and all of its fans were appealing for a penalty. Although, it has to be said, they weren't appealing for the penalty with 100% conviction. I pointed towards the corner flag. Cue much jeering from the crowd, incredulity from the 'fouled' forward. A corner kick may have been the right decision, but it may well not have. It could have been a goal kick. Or it could have been a penalty...

A radical change to the Offside Law for the amateur game

Game 31, 2019-20

For amateur games where there are no neutral and qualified linesmen/assistant referees, I propose that the International Football Association Board (IFAB) add the following clauses to Law 11, Offside:

* Any team that attempts to influence the referee's decision by appealing for offside, either verbally or through gestures such as raising an arm, automatically renders the opposing player in an onside position. In this way, the unsportsmanlike conduct of the defending team directly benefits the attacking team.

* All attempts to influence the referee's decision with regard to offside decisions shall be classified as unsporting conduct, and be punishable with a caution (or a ten-minute time penalty in leagues that operate sin-bins).

* Any protest from an attacking player deemed by the referee to be in an offside position will likewise be punishable with a caution. 

This would be a radical change to the law, but it would make an immense difference to refereeing at the lowest levels of the game, where there is a serious lack of the necessary three match officials for the following two reasons:

Why amateur refs are quitting in huge numbers

Game 22, 2019-20

The weekend before last, just south of the city where I ref, a 22-year-old referee was knocked unconscious by a player who'd just received a red card in a Level 11 game (see right). The referee had to be air-lifted to hospital. Thankfully, he recovered physically, but it made the national news and - as always when an incident like this happens - caused a lot of (temporary) agonising in the media and the football community about the way that referees are treated. Again and again I heard this figure quoted - over the past few years the number of registered referees in Germany has gone down from around 80,000 to 58,000. That's a massive and significant drop in numbers. There have been similar worries in the UK about the decline in the number of officials, and it's all for the same reason - who in his or her right fucking mind would want to spend their free time refereeing amateur football games in the current climate of General Anger About Everything?

I don't quote this exact statistic while shouting at the home team coach and the players of both teams in general during last night's Level 10 men's game. But I do forcefully make the point that "soon there'll be no one to referee your shitty games because we've all had enough of your shit behaviour, so shut your mouths and get on with the game, for Christ's sake." Still mad, I break into English: "You're acting like a bunch of fucking wankers..."

Big decision time - does this game really need a red card?

Games 18-19, 2019-20

Small-town home field
(pic: RT)

The away team's number eight, a midfielder, goes in way too hard and late on an opponent, about 40 yards from the home team's goal. It's a foul, no one's going to dispute that. The 100 or so home fans dutifully roar in outrage at the challenge, while the fouled player go downs with a cry and clutches his thigh. Part of me thinks it should be a straight red. Another part of me instantly counters that a red card would be too harsh.

At moments like this, in the few short seconds I have to make the decision, I try to take into account the temperature of the game. The home team is second from the bottom, the away team is second from the top. The score is 1-1 and there are 15 minutes to play. It's been an intense, hard-fought game, with lots of shouting and what we are now obliged to call "emotion" (but which I'd more often than not classify as hot-headed stupidity). The underdogs have come back strongly in the second half after going in at the break 0-1 down...

The rare and vital value of a calm captain

Games 13-14, 2019-20

It's been a quiet Sunday - I'm almost an hour into my second game of the day and I've yet to show a card. The away side's number 10, however, has been in my field of vision since a series of fouls in the first half. Now he trips an opposing player a few yards outside his own penalty area, then kicks the ball away when I whistle for the foul. I show him the yellow card.

'A Quiet Sunday' by
 John Inglis McClymont

His captain asks me politely if a yellow card is not a bit harsh for the offence. I reply that the player had already committed three fouls in the first half, and that I'd had a word with him about his conduct. The captain says, "Ah, I see. Okay, that's fine." And moves away.

A few minutes later, one of his own players is clattered in central midfield, and stays down briefly injured. The home team's player apologises and tries to help him up, but the player's not ready. The fouled player's team-mate marches over from his position at right-back and loudly starts a sentence aimed at me with the words, "With all due respect..."

Why can some players not just shut the hell up?

Game 12, 2019-20

Why are some players quiet throughout every game of their career, and some just can not stop their gobs? They yell at team-mates, they yell at opponents, they yell at referees, they'd probably yell at Jesus Christ if (s)he floated down on the pitch for a second-half Second Coming. "Not now, Jesus, we're 2-0 up with 10 minutes left. Come and save us after the final fucking whistle, Christ almighty!"

"Jesus Christ, get off the ****ing pitch!"

I reffed the home team a few weeks ago in a pre-season friendly that ended up with nine yellow cards, four of them for this particular team. I check the game report to see who offended, and what the offence was. I take particular note of players I've cautioned for unsporting behaviour and, even more so, dissent. That would be the diminutive number six, a central midfielder.

Last time around I showed him a yellow after just 19 minutes, which ensured that not only he, but everyone else too, stayed mostly quiet for the rest of the game. This time, he starts up again not long after the opening whistle, moaning about every call. I reach for my pocket...

When 22 moaning men shatter your confidence

Games 7-8, 2019-20

"This isn't a football game any more," states the home team's captain as he leaves the field. I've just shown him his second yellow card after he pulled back and brought down the away team's swift outside right as he hares towards the penalty area. The score is 0-4. Five minutes earlier I'd shown him his first yellow for his sullen, sarcastic query of, "Are we not playing offside today?" after the away team's fourth goal.

What now? Hungry? Lost dummy?
Or just another scandalous offside call?

No, it's not a game of football any more. It's a forum for petulant whiners. It's a maelstrom of bleating, skill-deprived tossers in acrylic uniforms. It's a platform for snorting, righteous, hot-eyed wankers viewing every call against them as a heinous affront to their dignity as human beings. This has nothing to do with a football game. Especially not among the home team, most of whom are shit (five minutes in, I predict a scoreline of 0-4).

Both teams are at it, though. All afternoon. Every foul called is not a foul. Every foul not called is, by contrast, a foul. Every offside decision called is not offside. Every call of 'play on' after an offside appeal is - you've guessed it - horrifically erroneous too. Of course it's offside. Four slow, stubby and rubicund defenders are screaming that it's offside, so it must have been...