Games
7-8, 2017-18
Anyone who's ever had a job has fantasised
about just walking out and sticking a finger up to their boss or manager as
they leave. It's how I feel at half-time of the fractious men's game I'm
reffing on a warm Sunday afternoon. Of course, just abandoning a game at
half-time would mean giving up refereeing for good, but still I'm tempted. Just
to see their faces when you say, "You can referee your own fucking game,
you wankers. And you're all shit at football too."
That day may come, though I'm not quite
ready for it yet. Still, If I'd known how the second half was going to play out, it might well have
happened.
 |
| After 25 minutes, a gentle appeal for quiet. |
Some times you referee a team that commits
lots of niggly, deliberate fouls, then complains every time you blow the
whistle. It's not a loud enough complaint to draw a yellow card, rather it's a deliberate
campaign to intimidate you and make you feel insecure. In this game, it's the
policy of both teams. After 25 minutes, as the ball's being fetched for a
corner kick, I announce loudly:
"Hey
ref! Hey ref! Hey ref! It's all I'm hearing. Shut up and play the
game." They duly ignore me, so in the next ten
minutes...Want to read more? Click here to order Reffing Hell: Stuck In The Middle Of A Game Gone Wrong by Ian Plenderleith (Halcyon Publishing), published on August 8, 2022.
hope you wrote it down as a referee assault...he deserves at least 6 months away from the game
ReplyDeleteI did, but I'm not holding out much hope for the disciplinary hearing. Last year I wrote up a full report on the bloke who threatened to break my neck, and never heard another thing about it. He continued to play throughout the season, mainly as a late sub, but when I reffed that team the other week he wasn't playing. Maybe he self-imploded.
ReplyDeleteOh dear, it is REALLY worth all the aggro? Don't know how you do it, far from being cowardly, it takes courage of a very particular sort.
ReplyDelete