Game 43, 2017-18
Just over a year I wrote about a game where
I red-carded three players from the away team on a particularly hostile afternoon,
even by the standards of this region’s amateur leagues. Last October I reffed them again, with barely a problem aside from one yellow card for dissent. Yet
while they had become more sanguine, they had crashed to the bottom of the
league, having no points from 13 games, with an impressive Goals Against tally
of 106.
 |
| Time for a change. |
This past Sunday I was assigned to ref them once more, on a
well-kempt grass field surrounded by four steps of terracing. A beautiful
little football ground on a stunning afternoon. Meanwhile, the team has
undergone its second complete transformation in just over a year. They’re good
again (having soared up to second from bottom with 21 points), but still calm. “They’ve got eight new players,” the opposition’s low-key
coach tells me before the game, resigned to the fact that his side is meeting
them just at the wrong time – as they're hitting form.
