The fusion of Reason (the referee) and Emotion (the player)

Game 38, 2017-18

Let's say that in theory the referee represents Reason, and that the players represent Emotion. The (uncorrupted) referee has no interest in the outcome of any given game, as it's their job to rationally and neutrally implement the rules.

Meanwhile, the players have only two goals in mind - the success of themselves and their team. The desire to score and win is driven by feelings of loyalty and ambition. Anything that thwarts that ambition provokes frustration and even anger (I know this because I played for 40 years).

"Hey, Roald, lend the
ref yer coat, will ya?"

A referee must accept that, as the anchor of reason, they are going to come into conflict with the mental tipping point of performers who, in their dreams, imagine themselves as heroes, even if only for a few hours among a small group of people wearing the same coloured shirt. That's an integral part of the game. There are days, though, when the precarious balance between reason and emotion makes no sense at all. Days when I'm pushed to get emotional too.

On Saturday night it was colder than it's been all winter - minus 7 degrees, with that same persistently penetrative wind that's been chilling our fibres since the middle of last week. And yet again I had the immense privilege of refereeing a one-sided U19 boys friendly match for the vast reward of €14, while all sensible folk were huddled in front of the football highlights or drinking beer somewhere warm. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who didn't want to be there. That's just by way of background...

A nice sunset and a bog-standard shoving match

Game 37, 2017-18

Sometimes there's no story to tell, but at least there's a picture to show. What you do not sense from the photograph is the bone-cutting breeze that added an extra layer of chill to an already sub-zero evening. At half-time in this U19 friendly, the away coach - 4-1 down and with only ten starting players - made the case for a shortened second half. Neither I nor the home coach had any problem with that.

After another commendably discussion-free first half, the inevitable happened in the second - a couple of the away players started to get frustrated at the score-line and committed deliberate, niggly fouls. This eventually resulted in a shoving match between two opposing teenagers, and the old fart with the whistle intervened to sort things out. Stern lecture, two yellows - the usual. The rest of the evening passed without incident, and at the final whistle we all trotted off a little quicker than usual to the warmth of the changing rooms.

When I got home I watched the second half of Sevilla v Manchester United. Hard to say which of these two games was more forgettable.

Final score: 9-1 (3 x yellow)

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. 

A 'soft' foul in the penalty area is still a penalty kick

Game 36, 2017-18

"And don't talk back to the referee!" I hear the home trainer instructing his U17 side just as I open the door to my changing room to step out and start the match. Sound advice.

And they don't, at least not to start with. This is the same club I reffed at on Valentine's Day, and clearly one with a generally healthy sporting culture. The first half passes without any major incident - no goals, no bookings, in a game of few chances contested by two well-matched teams. There's not a single sigh of dissent at any of the multiple free-kicks I blow for. If this keeps up, I'm going to start seriously enjoying my part-time job.

Careful with those arms
in the penalty area... (pic: N Lotze).

The second half would have passed just as quietly, had it not been for the two penalties. Both are conceded by the home team, and can only be described as 'soft', but they are clear fouls, committed right in front of me. Both times, a defender throws an opponent to the ground - not violently, just lazily. The first as the ball's flying overhead from a cross, the second as two players tussle for the ball after a corner kick. 

I've written before about players protesting penalty calls on soft fouls. "How can you give a penalty for that?" And I've written before that I have a certain sympathy - the weak foul didn't earn the harsh punishment of a spot-kick. But even a stupid and unnecessary foul is a foul, and if it's in the penalty area, it's a penalty kick. Go sing your laments on a hill-side in Zürich, but short of abolishing the penalty kick, Fifa's not changing the law on this any time soon.

So, I tell them all to shut up and back off. Both penalties are converted. The home team never really looks like getting one back.

It's not hard to treat the ref like a human

Game 35, 2017-18

It's Valentine's Day and I have a date after dark, somewhere in the woods, with 22 younger women. Kick-off is 8pm. Mrs RT is not happy, but it's nothing to do with the younger women. I'm recovering from a heavy cold and she thinks I'm an idiot for going out to run around in temperatures just below the point of freezing.

Hot chocolate and
unromantic cards
for Valentine's.

She's probably right (she usually is), but I go anyway. It's not that I wouldn't rather stay at home in the warmth, eating the rest of last night's stew and watching Real v PSG. But once I've accepted a game, I hate to turn it back for any reason. The referees' assignors hate you doing that even more, and I completely understand their point of view. As a coach, I hate players crying off late with weak excuses, but they do it all the time. If this was a coaching rather than a refereeing blog I'd write a list here of all the best ones, while weeping and wondering why people ever bother volunteering for anything at all.

I like the home club - they're one of the few places to always give you a warm welcome and hand you a bottle of water without you having to ask. The key-grip to the referee's changing room looks like a murder weapon, but you never know when that might come in useful too. I sit down to get changed and am suddenly worried by a thought that hits me way too late. What if Mrs RT had come home tonight and been hoping to find candles, chocolates, cards and a three-course meal on the dining room table? The Full Valentine's Bollocks...

Deliberately making the wrong decision

Game 34, 2017-18

On Saturday I gave a free kick when I should have given a penalty. There are no excuses for consciously making the wrong decision, but I'm going to explain it anyway.

The home team was leading 9-0 in a boys' U19 match. I had already awarded them three penalties. One had been saved and two converted. Their opponents simply were not good enough to take the ball off them. The home team's right-winger dribbled the ball towards the penalty area at speed. As he reached the area he was tripped, right on the line. I indicated that the foul had taken place just outside the area and awarded a free kick. No one complained.

A friendly club - except when they're playing friendlies

Games 31-33, 2017-18

The end of the winter break is approaching and the fixture list is gradually filling with friendlies. I return to the club where last time around I sent off the home coach and three players, one of whom threw his shirt in my face and then had to be restrained from attacking me. Has he been banned for life? No, he's in the starting line-up, and is standing at the halfway line with his team-mates having a light-hearted chat with me prior to kick-off about just how nut-numbingly cold it is.

In the spirit of friendship, it was back to
 liberally dishing out these at the weekend

"Last time I was here I showed four red cards," I remind them. They smile at this fond memory and tell me there will be none of that kind of behaviour today. After all, it's just a friendly. The player who threw his shirt in my face looks me in the eye and says, "The guy you sent off that time won't be causing you any trouble. He's not playing today." Either he's thinking of another game, or he's hoping that I don't remember his face (I do), or that I didn't check if his name was on the team-sheet before I left the house (I did). Or, more worryingly, he has two separate personalities.

They're an odd fucking bunch, right enough. They joke with me before the game, and afterwards too. In between, they are almost exclusively unpleasant...

A simple law to curb excessive goal celebrations

Last weekend, for my sins, I went with my Dad to watch Gainsborough Trinity play Alfreton Town, two teams at the lower end of the English regional sixth division (National League North). Gainsborough haven't had much success lately, so when they went 1-0 up after half an hour the celebrations were more than you might expect at this level. The goal scorer sprinted towards the home bench and jumped into the arms of his coach. The rest of the team followed and there was an almighty love-in.

My dad, who's very much old school when it comes to sporting behaviour, groaned at this excessive display, just as he'd loudly objected earlier to one of the Gainsborough players trying to get the referee involved in a long and pointless discussion about the exact place where an opponent's free-kick was about to be taken. The Alfreton players, meanwhile, had spotted that the Gainsborough players were now all in their own half, emoting by the bench. They had the ball at the centre spot and were ready for a quick restart.

They looked to the referee for a signal. And according to the laws of the game, he should have let them play. They would have had a clear run on goal, aside from maybe the home side's goalkeeper. But the referee refused to give the signal for the restart until all the Gainsborough players had finished hugging each other and had lined back up in position.

Saluting Harry, the amateur leagues' mental monster

Game 30, 2017-18

Not Harry, but a Harryesque
tackle (pic N. Lotze)

There's always a Harry, isn't there? He's one of the senior players on the team, and he plays in central defence. In this country - if he was good enough to be an active professional in the first division - the football press would adoringly label him a "monster of mentality".

As it happens, Harry's mainly just a mental monster in the amateur reserve leagues. He's absolutely uncompromising in the tackle. He never holds back when there's a challenge to charge into. He seeks out the ball like it's an incoming missile, and he's the last shield that will prevent it from causing wholesale destruction. Once intercepted, it doesn't matter where the ball goes, just as long as it's nowhere near his own goal.

The Gentleman is a Dope and other jazz records for referees

The winter break is here. It's time to count my earnings. Every week, rather than allow my chiselling compensation to be swallowed up by the daily cash flow of my wallet (pills, thrills, hearing aid batteries etc.), I drop the risible €22 in to my Manchester United 1977 FA Cup Winner's souvenir mug. Every few months I take Mrs RT out for a meal (because she never complains that I spend my Sundays being a human sponge for choleric inadequates), or I indulge myself in the sort of stuff that people of a certain age cannot resist: superfluous gadgets and old vinyl.

Receptacle for a mug's wages

There's a second hand record shop I often cycle past on my way to and from games, and inevitably I wonder why I'm not in there perusing forgotten Meisterwerke instead of pedalling off in to the wind and the rain to voluntarily face the wrath of athletically backward men operating on a collectively shortened fuse. Last week, though, in the comfort of knowing I won't be refereeing for at least another six weeks, I delayed a long overdue office clear-out in favour of finally stepping inside, the wages of abuse burning a hole in my jeans pocket.

What to do if a player throws a snowball at a coach

Game 29, 2017-18

Last spring at one of our regular referees' meetings aimed at our ongoing edification, I presented a critique of our online test on the Laws of the Game, where the object seems to be not to test you and make you a better referee, but to catch you out and go, "Ha!" As an example of the multiple stupid questions we are obliged to research and correctly answer once a month, I cited the following puzzler: "During a game on a snow-covered pitch with the ball in play, one of the players throws a snowball at the opposing team's coach. What is the referee's decision?"

White lines - don't do
 it! Bravely, we did.

Why is this such a stupid question? I asked rhetorically. First, there's a long winter break in this country, so you rarely if ever officiate matches in the snow. Second, due to global warming it hardly snows during the winter months any more at all, let alone outside of the winter break. Third, a game on the hypothetically snow-covered pitch would probably be called off anyway. And finally, in the very unlikely event that you ref a game on a snow-covered pitch, what are the odds of a player throwing a snowball at the opposing team's coach?