Why your offside calls are always "two metres" out

Games 6-7, 2020-21

There's an old fellow behind the away team's goal during Saturday's game, and he's angry at me about an offside call. How he could see that the call was wrong from behind the goal is anybody's guess. He shouts that I'm a waste of time, and backs that conviction up with dramatic arm gestures. There are three ways to respond to this: 1. Ignore him. He's obviously craving attention, so don't grant him the pleasure of thinking you're bothered by his opinion. 2. Move towards the moron, kneel down and then blow him an extravagantly choreographed kiss. 3. Move towards the moron and say, "I'm standing on this side of the barrier because I love football. You're standing on the other side of it because all you've got is a big trap."

I only thought of options two and three after the game, but that's probably just as well. Ignoring him was the best policy. Indeed, after the game I walk right past him to see if he has the courage to berate me face to face, but he's gone all quiet. Perhaps his anger has dissipated and been replaced by a gnawing existential dread of his pending mortality, fuelled by a sense of futility at the idea of protesting offside decisions during a boys U15 football game. Whatever it is, I reserve the right to engage options 2 and 3 at some future point of conflagration... 

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.