"Watch out, or I'll smack you in the face"

Game 24, 2019-20

The good news first - the weather's turned mild and it's stopped raining. It's my last game of the year, a men's mid-table clash, level 10. I'm warming up next to the pitch, where a boys' U13 game is coming to a close. There's a very young ref in charge, so I already have half an eye out on the game, but there's no major excitement from the touchlines and he seems to be fully in control.

Then, the away team coach starts yelling at him. I'm too far away to work out what it's about. There's no one down injured and there hasn't just been a goal or a penalty awarded, so there isn't any obvious cause. The coach is gesturing and shouting and he doesn't want to stop, so the young referee goes over to talk to him. I break off my warm-up and walk towards the field, though I'm still a few dozen yards away. The teenage referee is trying to talk to him, but the coach - a man of around 40, I'd say - is talking back over the top of him, loudly and vehemently. The young referee eventually gives up and goes back to re-start play. If this had been my game, the coach would have been red-carded, but I can see why a young ref might feel too intimidated to follow through in the face of such a performance.

Seconds after the game has resumed, I walk up to the coach and ask him why he's screaming at such a young referee. He looks at my warm-up jacket and sees the pennant of the city's refereeing association. Then he says, "Have you got a problem?" I tell him that as a referee I most certainly do have a problem with his touchline behaviour. His response is: "Well you'd better watch out then, or I'll smack you one in the face..."

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.