29 players, four coaches, and one 'thank you'

Games 20-21, 2022-23

Whenever I went to a birthday party as a kid, or just round to someone else's house for tea, my mum would drum it in to my head that, at the end of the afternoon, I should always remember to say thank you. When I got home, her first question was, "Did you remember?" Maybe you regard good manners as a bourgeois affectation, and you could be theoretically correct, but I'm nonetheless glad that I was taught the value and necessity of basic courtesy. It costs you nothing more than a few seconds and a little exercise of the tongue.

Please, show some merci

Some parties were better than others, it has to be said. Some kids' mothers were better cooks than other kids' mothers (dads did not prepare meals in the English east Midlands in the 1970s). Either way, they had made the effort to invite you round to host, entertain and feed you. Even if all you got was a sandwich made out of cucumber and stale bread, you still said those two wonderful words. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It generally meant you'd be welcome back next time around, and that your mate's parents didn't think you were an ill-mannered little prick.

On Saturday, I reffed a boys' U19 game, and it was pretty much par for

the course. A quiet first half followed by a rowdy second one, with much fouling, howling, protesting, and apparent contraventions of sporting justice. A short speech to the away team coach about him being a model for good behaviour rather than a tantrum-prone tower of twattery. A very lenient four yellow cards. The next day, I put out a tweet: "Boys' U19 yesterday: out of 29 players and four coaches there was a single, 'Thanks, ref', at game's end (away team's goalie). This is about average. I don't expect eulogies, just a touch more courtesy."

The tweet garnered a positive response, but also drew what another respondent called "a weird tweet"

Attempting the art of early de-escalation

Games 1-3, 2022-23

Cycling towards my first friendly of the season, heavy black clouds pollute the north-east horizon somewhere close to where I'll soon be refereeing. Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the river, a woman is screaming at me, but I can't understand what she's saying. Maybe she's some sort of soothsayer calling out, "Don't embark on another season of madness! Turn your bike around and quit now! Heed the storm ahead and lay down your whistle!" Or maybe she's just calling out, "You're shit, ref! I already know that wasn't offside and we haven't even kicked off yet!"

I keep pedalling, because it won't go down too well if I tell my assignor that I didn't show up because a mad woman on the banks of the Nidda was hollering portents of grief. Maybe I should have paid her more attention, though, because just 12 minutes into the game, I'm showing the first caution of the season when the home team's number 10 flies in and takes out an opponent with the kind of challenge which, if you cut it open down the middle, would reveal the words PRETTY FUCKING UGLY engrained from top to bottom. The player betrays a flicker of exasperation when he sees the yellow in my hand, but thankfully refrains from claiming immunity on the grounds that it was "my first foul, ref!"

"You wanted that, didn't you? You wanted that!"

Games 9-10, 2019-20

Coming soon to my city -
XXX-rated football

There's a new under-class in the city's football scene. Sensing that there's room to sink even further, a new City League C was created out of the bottom-feeders of last season's B divisions. At some point, I'm fully expecting us to plummet all the way to Z, barely pausing for breath at X, XX and triple X on the cascade downwards.

After 40 minutes of Class C sport, I stop the game and tell both captains to huddle with their teams and tell them: "Either you quit fouling and fighting, or I'll call the game off and recommend that both sides face lengthy bans." We've just seen the game's fifth and sixth yellow cards after a second mass confrontation. For once it's not me, they just seem to hate each other.

The home team's been banned before, so they in particular take notice. At half-time I chat with their trainer on our way to the locker room, and he promises that he will make clear to his players the need for discipline...