"Let's get Physical!" Let's see how that works out

Season 2024-25, Games 1-10

A breath of Champions League

The season's a few weeks old and I've reffed ten games without feeling compelled to write a blog. It's not that games have been any less eventful, but last season I felt that the narrative was repeating itself like a digestive system fuelled up on broad beans and sauerkraut. Coaches continued to jump up and down while yelling at me and their players. Parents and other spectators continued to have no clue about the Laws of the Game. Players were, in certain cases, beyond incredulous at my execrable decisions. The Pope, meanwhile, declared that yes, he was absolutely still a Catholic.

This season the German FA has introduced the captain's rule at all levels of the game (only the captain may discuss 'controversial' decisions with the referee), as well as the 'Stop-Concept' - you can blow the whistle when things get heated and send both teams to their respective penalty areas to just hang and chill for a while. With this back-up, I decided to give reffing men's games another go. The general behaviour isn't that much better overall, but having those official tools at my disposal makes me feel more secure about dealing with conflict and damnation.

Here are this season's sporting low points so far.

Game Six. After a suspiciously quiet start to the season, the bother kicks off good and proper with a shipwreck of a boys' U15 game. There are several substitutions and a couple of stoppages in the generally quiet first half, so I play two minutes of added time. In the second minute of added time, the home team takes a 1-0 lead. When I blow the whistle a few seconds later, the away coach begins to scream, "Referee! It's U15! Don't you know we only play 35 minutes!?!" I ignore him. So he screams it all over again, even louder, because he thinks that he didn't get his important point across. So I show him a yellow card, after which he claims short term memory loss by asking, "What did I say?" At least he shuts up for the rest of the game.

In the name of Apollo, why could he not just have asked me politely why we played two minutes of added time? And if I'd run over and yelled, "I added two minutes because there were several substitutions and a couple of stoppages, you pulp-brained fucking moron!" would he have accepted that I was answering the question in the same spirit that it was asked?

In the second half, the game turns nasty, with six yellow cards and two time penalties, almost all of them for moaning or unsporting conduct. The great thing about the captain's rule is that when someone moans loudly about an offside call, say, you can just say, "Excuse me, are you the captain? Ah, no. So, here's a yellow card." And even if it is the captain, you can card them anyway, because dissent's not the captain's privilege.

Game Seven. Men's Level 10, on a bumpy grass field wedged into woodland, where on one side the trees black out the floodlights five meters into the pitch. Let's call it The Dark Side. I don't notice it until the sun goes down 20 minutes into the game, otherwise I'd never have let the game kick off. Still, a peaceful enough first half. The away team's 3-0 up by the break, the home team's somewhat older and less athletic. In the second half, their player manager appeals for a foul when one of his players fails to reach the ball while an opposing defender shepherds it out of play. I decline the request, so he yells, "Right lads, from now on we play physical too!" A few minutes later, out on The Dark Side, he thinks he's been fouled when he's probably just too slow to get to the ball first. So he responds with a wild and deliberate swing of his leg to the opponent's lower body. The red card's almost jumping out of my back pocket before I can even lay a finger on it. Fortunately, there's no serious injury. Mr. Olivia Newton-John ("Let's Get Physical!") leaves the field without complaint.

After a couple more meaty challenges, everyone's getting upset and throwing tantrums, bless them, so I blow up and make use of the 'Stop-Concept' for the first time. The players huddle in their penalty areas. Then we resume the game and everyone more or less behaves. At the end of the game, the player-manager wants to know why I didn't whistle for a foul before his red mist moment. I say that I didn't see a foul, maybe they need to cut the tree branches on The dark Side. And even if he had been fouled, that was no reason to try and break an opponent's leg. It's not a friendly chat, something I note later in my disciplinary report. (Note to players: you can probably reckon with a much shorter ban if you say 'Sorry' after the game and admit that you behaved like a dick.)

Game Nine. Men's cup tie, second round, both teams level 9, both playing decent football, but the away team gets a trio of yellows for reckless fouls. The next punishment is predictable - their number 15 goes in way too late and hard, with his studs up, right in front of me in the centre circle. Straight leg, straight red. The captain accepts the explanation, even as the culprit is yelling at me. Dude, fuck off the field right now, your sport is over for tonight and likely the next three weekends.

The away team is 3-2 up at this point, but goes on to lose 5-3. "Shame, shame," the the away team's number 17 says to me at the final whistle, while shaking my hand - the sportsmanlike equivalent of a back-handed compliment. I'm shaking your hand, but in a way to stress what a fucking mess you made of our night by sending off one of our players. Shame, shame that your dirty tactics didn't work and that you're out the cup. Such a shame that I will cry myself to sleep tonight. You twat.

Game Ten. Boys' U11. The away coach moans to me no less than three times before the game's even started that the pitch is too wide. I tell him it's not, it's within regulation size. His team is shit, and 3-0 down by the break. I have a special talk with his number 11, who has been called for 'robust' fouls three times, and advise him to try playing the ball, not the boy. Right after halftime, he does the opposite for the fourth time. So I talk to the coach, who happens to be his dad, and say he's got a choice - either you sub the player out or I'll send him out for a five-minute time penalty.

His co-trainer, who seems quite sensible, immediately takes the subbing option. "But he can come back in, right?" I say that he can, if they have a wee chat with him, but when the kid realises that he's being subbed out, he goes rogue and starts kicking the fence surround. Five times, while screaming very loudly. "Okay, scrap that, he can't come back in," I say. Five minutes later, they try it anyway. I repeat that I won't let the player back in. The coach starts to yell at me. There's a jaundice-tinted punishment for that. The team loses 8-0 and at the final whistle, as sure as death and defeat, dad-coach starts to walk towards me.

"We can discuss this if you're going to talk to me in a calm and even tone," I say. He promises me that will be the case. I explain that the health and the safety of the players is my absolute priority, and that his player was out of control, both on the field and off it, but that I had wanted to spare him a red card at such a young age. Does the coach thank me? Ha ha ha. Guess what, he breaks his promise and starts to get loud, telling me that I don't know what I'm doing, and as I walk away he yells, "You ruined our whole game plan today!" Which was presumably that his son should kick the living shit out of their superior opponents in the hope of keeping the score down.

Later, in front of the club house after I've got changed, a woman approaches me to ask if it was me who just refereed the U13 game. Oh fuck, what now? I confirm that I was the man with the whistle. "Thank you so much for the calm and efficient way you dealt with that situation," she says. "We've had two broken bones this season already." Just a mum concerned about her kid getting hospitalised by a defender with the poise and skill of a bamboozled ox in silken socks on a frozen pond. I thank her in return. The scrap of acknowledgment will keep me going for another week or two.

Game One: 2-1 (no cards)
Game Two: 1-3 (1 x yellow, 1 x time-penalty)
Game Three: 3-1 (3 x yellow)
Game Four: 0-2 (3 x yellow)
Game Five: 0-3 (no cards)
Game Six: 1-1 (7 x yellow, 2 x time-penalties)
Game Seven: 0-4 (2 x yellow, 1 x red)
Game Eight: 3-1 (2 x yellow)
Game Nine: 5-3 (5 x yellow, 1 x red)
Game Ten: 8-0 (3 x yellow, 1 x time-penalty)

Want to read more tales of refereeing darkness and light? My quite frankly fantastic book Reffing Hell, covering six years of blog entries no longer available on this site, can still be purchased directly from its publisher Halcyon. Please support this blog and independent publishing by buying a copy. Referees and all their undoubted admirers alike will relate to its stories of bampot coaches, unhinged parents and hysterical players. Thank you!