"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.

Calling the cops to ensure a safe passage home

Games 15-17, 2023-24

Let's jump to Game 17. It was already over two weeks ago, but it's taken me that long to feel like writing about it. For the first time ever, the police were called to one of my games. If we want to put a positive spin on it, I suppose that's not bad going after 15 years.

It was a one-sided boys' U19 game of parsimonious quality but the usual lavish amounts of fouling, moaning and mutual disrespect. In the first half, there were nine cautions for 'tick-them-off' stupidities - kicking the ball away, failure to retreat at a free-kick, a square-up involving the away team's number 3 (relevant for what happens later), and several over-the-top fouls, including one by the away team's number 8. Following his yellow card, he gets into a shouting match with several of his opponents and is immediately subbed out by his coach. Thank you.

As we walk off the field at half-time, I make a loud appeal for both teams to focus on their football in the second half. I might as well have been asking them to put their their mobile phones in a locked box until they'd read and memorised the Complete Works of Johann Wolfgang Goethe. The tone of the game is no different, and although the home team is dominant, they're also dirty too - two players get sent out for five minutes for reckless fouls. When one of their forwards fouls the previously cautioned number 3 with a quarter of an hour left to play, the victim comments that if he gets fouled again, "I'm going to break someone's foot".

“Ref, WHY WON'T YOU TALK TO ME?”

Game 48, 2022-23

Boys’ U19. A messy game. Tons of yellows for all the usual shite (fouling, howling, hacking), three time-penalties, and two reds. So much to process, so let’s just look at the two dismissals.

I check the two teams’ recent form and disciplinary record. The game’s a dead rubber, but that doesn’t mean it will be a quiet night. The away team won last week 8-0, but had a player sent off close to the end of the game when they were already eight goals to the good. “How did that happen?” I ask their coach before I start my warm-up routine.

“Ah, yes, that’s our number 10. I subbed him out and he said something to the referee, but I’m not sure what.” I say that at least he won’t be playing today, because a straight red card means a suspension. “Actually, he is playing today. The referee never filed a disciplinary report.” (Cheers for that, dear colleague.) Well, I respond, please make sure to let him know that I won’t be tolerating any such antics. The coach assures me that the player will be on his best behaviour, though who knows how good that best behaviour is.

At half-time of an already dirty spectacle (five cautions in the first 45 minutes, four of them to the away team), the number 10 is subbed in. He’s inconspicuous until the 70th. minute, when he’s fouled and tripped while dribbling the ball in his own half. He’s ignited, so stands straight back up and shoves his

Dissent - football's festering verbal disease

Games 11-14, 2022-23

Dissent. Never-ending dissent. I would enjoy refereeing ten times more if players would just shut up and play. If they would only learn that moaning about a decision will not prompt me to change my mind, but it will prompt me to recall Law 12 and its rectangular yellow sanction for theatrical gesticulation and runaway gobs.

Half-time event (see below)

How I love games without dissent. Like the two intense, hard-fought midweek cup ties last week - a U17 and a U19 game - where there was an almost complete absence of moaning. The one player booked for dissent over the two games came and shook my hand after the final whistle, said thank you, and even smiled.

There are teams that take you seriously when you show no mercy for their lack of respect. In Saturday's U19 boys' league game, I lecture to one complaining home team player, "My name is not 'Ref', to you it's Mr. Referee, and you will keep your mouth closed and accept my decisions for the rest of the afternoon." It doesn't even need that stupid little yellow card to come out of my pocket - that's it with the dissent until the fifth and final minute of stoppage time.

The home team's leading 5-4 and are taking the ball to the corner flag. When the ball goes out of play, I indicate a throw-in for the hosts. The away team's left back unleashes a torrent of abuse in my direction. I

Out of nowhere, violent words and conduct. What brought *that* on?

Game 4, 2021-22

In my day job I've been editing an interview with a scientist who works in anti-doping research. The scientist estimated that the number of young men taking anabolic steroids runs into the hundreds of thousands - somewhere between half a million and 700,000. He didn't say what geographical area that estimate covers, but even if it's the entire world the numbers are still way too high. The damaging and often deadly side-effects of anabolic steroids far outweigh the 'benefit' of temporarily boosting your muscle mass.

One of the many negative side-effects of abusing steroids is a marked increase in aggressive behaviour, and I began to wonder if there's a connection between steroid consumption and the high number of young men I see suddenly lose a grip on their tempers during amateur football games. I thought about it even more following an ugly incident just before half-time in yesterday's game.

Up until then, it had been a quiet friendly between two level 8 men's teams. I like this level, because everyone can play and there are generally fewer fouls. The players are more skilful, more savvy, and better disciplined. True, the home defence complained loudly about a non-existent offside when they went 2-0 down after ten minutes, but I nipped the dissent in the bud with an early yellow, and that was it for the day. Instead of trying to play a dubious offside trap in a game with no ARs, they stopped moaning and dropped a player back into the sweeper position.

Then, with the score at 1-3 on 43 minutes, the home team's number 11 took out the away team's number 17 with a robust challenge in the centre circle. I was about five yards away, so immediately blew for the free-kick. I was ready to have a strong...

This team is a BOMB!

Game 11, 2020-21

I don't want to show the away team's right back the red card. It's the 93rd. minute, the game's as good as over. His side is leading 3-0. Prior to that, he'd been one of the few players to show that it's possible to defend well, but without fouling your opponent in every second challenge. Frankly, there are half a dozen other players on the field I'd rather see head for an early shower.

But, but, but...  a few seconds earlier he and the home team's number 11 had been chasing a long through-ball played out to the left. The winger had, for once, just beaten him to the ball and poked it ahead, ready for a clear run on goal. The right back came a second too late for the ball and clattered the number 11 to the ground. Brutal foul play and the denial of a clear goal-scoring opportunity - take your pick. With a rueful expression, I pull out the red card and he accepts the decision without any protest at all.

Afterwards, he comes to the changing room to apologise, and to tell me that he's already said sorry to his opponent, who was injured but - thankfully - not seriously. I tell him that I was sorry to show him red after he'd had such a good game, and that I knew the foul was not intentional...

Big decision time - does this game really need a red card?

Games 18-19, 2019-20

Small-town home field
(pic: RT)

The away team's number eight, a midfielder, goes in way too hard and late on an opponent, about 40 yards from the home team's goal. It's a foul, no one's going to dispute that. The 100 or so home fans dutifully roar in outrage at the challenge, while the fouled player go downs with a cry and clutches his thigh. Part of me thinks it should be a straight red. Another part of me instantly counters that a red card would be too harsh.

At moments like this, in the few short seconds I have to make the decision, I try to take into account the temperature of the game. The home team is second from the bottom, the away team is second from the top. The score is 1-1 and there are 15 minutes to play. It's been an intense, hard-fought game, with lots of shouting and what we are now obliged to call "emotion" (but which I'd more often than not classify as hot-headed stupidity). The underdogs have come back strongly in the second half after going in at the break 0-1 down...

The rare and vital value of a calm captain

Games 13-14, 2019-20

It's been a quiet Sunday - I'm almost an hour into my second game of the day and I've yet to show a card. The away side's number 10, however, has been in my field of vision since a series of fouls in the first half. Now he trips an opposing player a few yards outside his own penalty area, then kicks the ball away when I whistle for the foul. I show him the yellow card.

'A Quiet Sunday' by
 John Inglis McClymont

His captain asks me politely if a yellow card is not a bit harsh for the offence. I reply that the player had already committed three fouls in the first half, and that I'd had a word with him about his conduct. The captain says, "Ah, I see. Okay, that's fine." And moves away.

A few minutes later, one of his own players is clattered in central midfield, and stays down briefly injured. The home team's player apologises and tries to help him up, but the player's not ready. The fouled player's team-mate marches over from his position at right-back and loudly starts a sentence aimed at me with the words, "With all due respect..."

"Why is your refereeing so shit tonight?"

Game 11, 2019-20

One of the reasons I love refereeing is the number of philosophical discussions it leads to about the game, both off the field and on. At the end of 90 minutes in last night's City Cup game, for example (score: 1-1, with extra time about to be played), a defender on the away team came up to me and asked, "Why is your refereeing so shit tonight?"

My reffing, last night.

Good question. Am I having a bad day? Am I biased against his team for reasons real or imaginary? Am I just in general not fit to arbitrate the game of football due to a lack of knowledge, experience and temperament? Or does the player hold a distorted view of my officiating skills because five minutes earlier I'd sent off one of his team-mates for his second yellow card offence, and now they had to play extra-time one man down?

Correction, make that two men down. Insulting the referee is a straight red card.

The player is astonished. What was the red card for? Well, I explain, you just insulted the referee. No I didn't, he maintains. I didn't say you're a shit referee. I just said that tonight your refereeing is shit...

Ultras in the park, and getting away with a conflict of interest

Games 27-28, 2018-19

I'm waiting with the away lads for the home side to come out of the changing room. It's a U19 team in an end-of-season mood, and we make flippant small-talk. "How many of you are playing for the U17s tomorrow morning?" I ask. Four of them raise their hands. "Oh good," I say, "I'll see you there - I'm your opponent's coach." Most of the team laugh and make a comment about how the four players are now in extra danger of a red card so that they'll be banned from the following day's game.

Better be really careful with these today...

I laugh too, but I'm restrained. I've just made a potentially serious error. What if one of these four players does indeed commit a red card offence? This is a conflict of interest that I should have avoided, but I only noticed the anomaly that morning when it was too late to pull out of the game. On the plus side, there's nothing really at stake for the away team in today's game - it's the home side that can win the championship if they pick up three points.

Preparing for teams with atrocious disciplinary records

Game 8, 2018-19

A freezing night, a cinder pitch, and a relegation battle in the city's A League between two men's teams who are not only very low in the standings, but last and fourth-last in the disciplinary table. Between them, they've managed 16 red cards this season (eight apiece), with the home side racking up six straight reds and an almost impressive 57 yellows in just 19 games. 

Home team's appeal: "Fair Play - also applies
please to PARENTS and FANS. Thank you!"

I spend the ride to the ground pondering the best way to broach this in my pre-match speech. Sometimes I think about saying nothing at all, and that instead I should try and come across as silent, stern and unapproachable. I used to know a ref in the US who'd come to games glowering like a pensioner at a swingers' club, wearing a hoodie and dark glasses and looking like he was about to discharge a semi-automatic on both teams (always a possibility in the US). He was told either to quit or drop the attitude - he was scaring the kids, and the parents too.

I'm not much good at looking like the hard man, though. My first instinct when I meet the coaches is always to smile, introduce myself and shake their hands. No one likes an asshole, and why get things off on the wrong footing? So as we line up to take the field I give them my usual speech about my invisible linesmen and add, "By the way, I've seen the Fair Play table and it's an ugly sight. So, for God's sake, try and play football and enjoy the game." Cue shit-eating grins from both teams.

10 things amateur referees hate to see or hear

Games 5-6, 2018-19

What are the 10 things I least want to see or hear when I'm refereeing a game of football?

1. The shout for "Offside!" almost every single time a forward is through alone on goal. It comes from the defenders, it comes from the coaches, it comes from the spectators - a one-word vocal plague of ignorance upon the amateur game. During Saturday's game, a goalkeeper saved a free-kick and then complained that the player who followed it up to score was offside. How did he see that when he was saving the kick? He went on about it so much (and I tried to ignore him, but he ran after me almost all the way to the half-way line screaming, "Offside! Offside!") that he ended up with a yellow card.

2. "You have to call fouls against both teams!" This usually comes from a losing coach or one of his players. Oh, really? I thought I was just supposed to call fouls against your team as a heaven-ordained test of your patience...

Stormy skies, multiple reds and murder

Games 44-45, 2017-18

It's quiet and sultry in the park, with death and distant storms in the air. Two teams of men lazily warm themselves up for the 1pm kick-off. Four days earlier, just a few hundred yards from where we're about to play sport, a dog-walker found the body of a 29-year-old woman. Life must go on, though - this end-of-season dead rubber at the middle to lower end of the city's bottom league abjures all musings on mortality. After all, there's 13th place to defend.

"But ref, I was trying to play the ball!"

It doesn't take long for the afternoon to plummet from meaningless kick-about to a prolonged and rabid expression of collective outrage. It's all my fault, of course, when in the ninth minute an away defender chooses to upend the home team's forward, who's through on goal in the penalty area and about to shoot. It was I who personally wrote the rules saying that the denial of a clear goal-scoring opportunity is a red card offence. And no, there was no attempt at all to play the ball, which was far beyond the lugging defender's reach. It was a cynical, calculated trip.

The red-carded player and his team-mates all surround me, shouting and gesticulating...

A straight red card rarely calms a game

Games 22-23, 2017-18

Fifteen minutes to go, and I'm surrounded by four people, all of them screaming at me. One of them is the home number 9 I've just sent off for stamping on an opponent, a crime he vigorously denies. The other three belong to his team's touchline entourage - they may be coaches, spectators or even the stewards. I'm not looking at them, I'm staying calm and ordering them to move away.

Traffic wardens - card-issuing
enforcers about as popular as referees.

There's nothing like a straight red card to ignite the tinders of outrage at the referee's very existence. Only when there's been a fist thrown does the miscreant usually accept his fate and walk away. For filthy fouls and acts of minor, stupid and unnecessary violence like this one, the punishment administered is apparently beyond the realms of human belief. How, how, how could I possibly send this player off? "I was only going for the ball!"

"Your refereeing's shit!" Then a flying shirt in my face

Games 7-8, 2017-18

Anyone who's ever had a job has fantasised about just walking out and sticking a finger up to their boss or manager as they leave. It's how I feel at half-time of the fractious men's game I'm reffing on a warm Sunday afternoon. Of course, just abandoning a game at half-time would mean giving up refereeing for good, but still I'm tempted. Just to see their faces when you say, "You can referee your own fucking game, you wankers. And you're all shit at football too."

That day may come, though I'm not quite ready for it yet. Still, If I'd known how the second half  was going to play out, it might well have happened.

After 25 minutes, a
gentle appeal for quiet.

Some times you referee a team that commits lots of niggly, deliberate fouls, then complains every time you blow the whistle. It's not a loud enough complaint to draw a yellow card, rather it's a deliberate campaign to intimidate you and make you feel insecure. In this game, it's the policy of both teams. After 25 minutes, as the ball's being fetched for a corner kick, I announce loudly:

"Hey ref! Hey ref! Hey ref! It's all I'm hearing. Shut up and play the game." They duly ignore me, so in the next ten minutes...

Debating DOGSO

Games 3-5, 2017-18

The spectator seems genuinely angry, as they often generally are on their way out of the ground after a home defeat. "That should have been a red card," he huffs at me with hot conviction. I'm standing at the tournament official's table, getting my cash, and don't bother responding. Right after the final whistle is generally not a good time for rational discussion.

DOGSO - much dissected and
discussed among reffing nerds

"Bet he's never refereed a game in his life," mutters the official. I laugh and give one of my standard replies: "Everyone's an expert. Everyone." The tournament's sponsored by a local bank, and there's decent cash involved for the winners. This is a welcome contribution to the sporting community, but not much help when it comes to sporting perspectives.

2016-17 Review - Football and the Human Condition

Game 55, 2016-17

Most of us are doing
what we can...

It’s the last weekend of the season, and it ends up being another game when my expectations are confounded. These are not only two clubs I’ve had trouble with in the past, but the game is at boys’ U17 level - that age when hormones seem most volatile, and the urge to shove, kick or insult an opponent can override the threat of punishment. Just like last week, I issue a pre-match appeal for calm, sportsmanship and decency, and point out that we’d all like to reach the end of the season unscathed.

There’s a size and talent gap between the home and the away team, but they both play decent football. Lacking any subs, the away team tires in the second half on a hot afternoon. Unlike many teams in their age group, though, they don’t start kicking out in frustration, or to yell at each other’s mistakes. They keep passing the ball along the ground right until the final whistle. The young coach utters not a word in my direction all game.

We get through with just a single yellow card on either side – one for a second clumsy foul (away team), the other for chucking an opponent to the ground (home team). The latter offence happens ten minutes before time, with the home team already 6-1 ahead. “Hey, we’ve had none of that all afternoon – don’t spoil a sporting contest,” I carp. The player raises his arms to acknowledge the crime, and someone else agrees with me. Maybe a player, maybe a coach. That’s as controversial as it gets.

A foul, a shove, then a full-blooded fist-fight

Games 47-48, 2016-17

Bremner and Keegan in the
good old days. 

The coach of the away team is on the pitch and yelling at me, even though his side is 3-1 up. I've just shown one of his players a red card. He's so outraged that he wants to take them off the field and concede the game. Even his own players are telling him that's a bad idea. They would rather play another ten minutes and take the three points than forfeit for a 3-0 loss on a matter of principle.

What's going on? It's a boys' U17 game, and up until the 68th minute it has been relatively peaceful. Only half an hour in, when the home team subs in a burly latecomer, do things heat up a little. He slots into the back four and immediately starts a little something with the opposing number 7 after a clash of adolescent bodies and egos. "It was pretty peaceful until you turned up two minutes ago," I say. "Cut it out." And he does.

The away team are league leaders and on the edge of winning the title. The home side are in mid-table, playing out the season without too much enthusiasm. One of their players, the number 16, takes exception to being fouled near the halfway line. He pushes the player who fouled him, the away team's number 15, who pushes him back. So then the number 16 thumps the number 15, and the number 15 thumps him back, and in the course of two seconds it has escalated to a full-blooded fistfight. Think Billy Bremner and Kevin Keegan at the 1974 Charity Shield.

I run over, blowing away on my whistle...

Three red cards and some issues of racial awareness

Games 40-41, 2016-17

Some days, this seems like time
better spent than refereeing. 

Sometimes I get assigned to a game out of town, and when I look at the laughably christened Fair Play Table, my heart sinks a little and I think I know why I'm being given the treat of a longer trip. Yesterday I was sent to officiate between teams who, in the disciplinary rankings, were third bottom (the home team) and bottom (away). This is in a league of very few angels, where you have to be almost conscientiously deviant to hit last place.

I presume that the idea is to ship an unknown ref in for a potentially explosive game, then let him flee the scene never to be heard of again in that neck of the woods. It's true there are some players you encounter on a weekend afternoon you'd might not want to meet on the street late on a week day night. I've retained a clear image in my head of the player who threatened to break my neck last autumn. You know, just in case.

I talk with the referee who's just officiated the game before me, between the reserve teams of the same two clubs. How was it, I ask. He shrugs. "Well," he says of the away team. "They're..." And he names their nationality, like it's understood...

Trying hard to avoid a straight red card

Game 35, 2016-17

Get the message,
get the t-shirt

First clash for points after the winter break, and it's Third v First in a boys' U17 league. As always, I check the disciplinary records of both teams. The first-placed team have only accrued eight cautions all season. The home team have been far less shy at disturbing the referee.

In the refs' changing room, I talk to the lad who's just finished whistling the U13 game before me. By coincidence, he plays for the second-placed team in the U17 league. When they played today's hosts, he tells me, "they tried to kick us off the park".

Does that mean I go into the game expecting trouble from the home team? Not at all - just as the game starts at 0-0, so does the punishment card. It does no harm, though, to be aware of a team's reputation...