Missing, presumed dead - Fair Play

Game 46, 2017-18

The home team in this boys' U17 game is bottom of the league with six points, and bottom of the Fair Play table with many more. The two often go hand in hand - the team currently at the top of this league is also first in Fair Play. There are obvious reasons why a well-disciplined XI performs better on the field.

Slogans with good intentions -
but they change fuck all.

I talk to the home side's coach before the game. He explains that he only took the team over two weeks ago, and is preparing them already for next season. "Things have been a bit chaotic," he says. And when the game starts, you can see why a change of coach was necessary. Their understanding of the offside law is non-existent, and their position in the Fair Play standings truly reflects their sourpuss, foul-based approach to football. Again, what a privilege to referee such a game for €14.

The away team, in sixth place, has no problem catching their opponents offside again and again, to the sound of much screaming from the home team's parents. I'm not sure if they're yelling at the number nine who's consistently caught out, the players who pass to him, or at me for calling it. Probably all three. But I've been in a state of numbed indifference to almost everything since the last game two weeks ago, so I pay them no attention.

The course of the game is predictable. The home team fall three goals behind, and in the face of summer heat and frustration at their own incompetence they start to get nasty. There's a rash of yellow cards for all the familiar reasons - fouling, moaning, unsportsmanlike behaviour. At the end, though, the home coach has no complaints (just one polite question about a disallowed goal), and I wish him the best of luck in turning the team around.

The previous day I was coaching my U7 team in the Fair Play League, where goals aren't counted. Supposedly. In this league we play two x 20 minute halves. The opposition coaches stood yelling things like "Mark your man!" to six-year-olds. Like every week, my instructions before kick-off were: "Have fun. Score some goals!" 

Fergie time - even in the U7s league...

Because the score's irrelevant, I won't tell you how the game stood at the end of 40 minutes. But we didn't play 40 minutes. The home coach, who controls the stopwatch, just kept playing and playing until... his team equalised, then he ended the game. Great joy among the home parents. His assistant, who had probably seen me looking at my watch, patted me on the back and said, "Fair result, eh?" I managed not to tell him what was really on my mind right at that moment, but just replied, "The results don't matter." Not in the Fair Play League. 

I don't begrudge them the result, just the way they achieved it and the fact they thought it mattered at this age. Thankfully, the state FA is planning to abolish 7-a-side games in both the U7 and the U9 age groups, to be replaced by 3-a-side kick-abouts with portable goals and no keepers. That won't be in place in time for next season, though. So we'll play through another year where the seeds of poor behaviour are planted by over-ambitious, controlling coaches and clueless, vociferous parents, all paying lip service to the long since redundant concept of Fair Play. 

Final score: 1-5 (6 x yellow, 1 x time penalty)

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.