It's almost routine - a red card for violent conduct in a youth game

Game 32-33, 2019-20

"If the poor, insulted mothers only knew how many fights they were responsible for instigating on the football fields of Germany every weekend..." So began one of my paragraphs in the disciplinary report that followed Sunday's U17 boys game. 

Call someone a 'bastard', and they might get shirty, but they don't scream, "Are you saying my mum and dad weren't married when I was born?" Call someone a wanker and they might be pissed off, but they don't get right in your face and yell, "Are you implying that I indulge in acts of self-gratification? ARE YOU?" Yet call someone a son of a whore, and they immediately think that you are insulting their mother and freak out in her defence. This insult is apparently personal in a way that being a bastard or a wanker is not. I'm not saying any of these terms are acceptable on the football field (they're not), but this last one really seems to set the place on fire...

A radical change to the Offside Law for the amateur game

Game 31, 2019-20

For amateur games where there are no neutral and qualified linesmen/assistant referees, I propose that the International Football Association Board (IFAB) add the following clauses to Law 11, Offside:

* Any team that attempts to influence the referee's decision by appealing for offside, either verbally or through gestures such as raising an arm, automatically renders the opposing player in an onside position. In this way, the unsportsmanlike conduct of the defending team directly benefits the attacking team.

* All attempts to influence the referee's decision with regard to offside decisions shall be classified as unsporting conduct, and be punishable with a caution (or a ten-minute time penalty in leagues that operate sin-bins).

* Any protest from an attacking player deemed by the referee to be in an offside position will likewise be punishable with a caution. 

This would be a radical change to the law, but it would make an immense difference to refereeing at the lowest levels of the game, where there is a serious lack of the necessary three match officials for the following two reasons:

Buffalos, Baby Bulls and Headless Geese - Gegenpressing in the Amateur Game

Games 27-30, 2019-20

As teams warm up for the resumption of competitive league play, there's a rash of men's friendlies as the players try to get back into shape following the winter break. Many coaches seem to have spent their weeks away from the sideline studying the masters, and have decided that the best way to approach the second half of the season is with a spanking new tactical system they ripped off an Internet Chalkboard of Football Wisdom.

Gegenpressing

In practice, this currently means following the vogue for Pressing and Gegenpressing. Game pattern: for the first five minutes, let the opposition pass the ball around the back four. Next 40 minutes, yell "Pressure!" and send the forwards and midfield into hectic spoiler mode. There follow about 600 changes of possession, and almost as many fouls, as decidedly amateur players attempt to implement The Klopp Doctrine. Instead of looking like European champions, though, the teams look like decapitated geese in the farm yard after the puddles have frozen overnight. It's not so much Kick and Rush as Chicken Rush...

Finally, leadership from the top on dissent

Games 25-26, 2019-20

During the winter break the German FA issued a set of instructions to its top flight referees regarding dissent, diving, time-wasting and aggressive behaviour towards referees. It reiterated that each offence on its long list was to be punished with a yellow card. The instructions were passed down the chain of command to all amateur referees. And so to my weekend.

Saturday afternoon: A boys U19 game between the second placed team (at home, in white) and the third (away, in black), separated only by goal difference. As we line up, I mention the new guidelines, and warn them that any kind of dissent will be punished with a yellow card. But these are teenage boys, and they probably need to be told at least 15 times before they take the information on board. In the eighth minute comes the first caution, for the forward on the white team who protests loudly about me calling his foul on a defender. In the 12th. minute comes the second yellow card, for a defender on the black team yelling at me for not giving what he insists was an offside call. The rest of the half is quiet.

In the second half, the game heats up...

"Watch out, or I'll smack you in the face"

Game 24, 2019-20

The good news first - the weather's turned mild and it's stopped raining. It's my last game of the year, a men's mid-table clash, level 10. I'm warming up next to the pitch, where a boys' U13 game is coming to a close. There's a very young ref in charge, so I already have half an eye out on the game, but there's no major excitement from the touchlines and he seems to be fully in control.

Then, the away team coach starts yelling at him. I'm too far away to work out what it's about. There's no one down injured and there hasn't just been a goal or a penalty awarded, so there isn't any obvious cause. The coach is gesturing and shouting and he doesn't want to stop, so the young referee goes over to talk to him. I break off my warm-up and walk towards the field, though I'm still a few dozen yards away. The teenage referee is trying to talk to him, but the coach - a man of around 40, I'd say - is talking back over the top of him, loudly and vehemently. The young referee eventually gives up and goes back to re-start play. If this had been my game, the coach would have been red-carded, but I can see why a young ref might feel too intimidated to follow through in the face of such a performance.

Seconds after the game has resumed, I walk up to the coach and ask him why he's screaming at such a young referee. He looks at my warm-up jacket and sees the pennant of the city's refereeing association. Then he says, "Have you got a problem?" I tell him that as a referee I most certainly do have a problem with his touchline behaviour. His response is: "Well you'd better watch out then, or I'll smack you one in the face..."

On a dark, wet night when you just don't feel like refereeing...

Game 23, 2019-20

There are some days when you don't feel like leaving the house. It's getting late on a dark Sunday afternoon and the Scottish League Cup Final's just a click away. Everyone else in the family is on the sofa in the warm living room, a plate of Christmas sweets on the coffee table alongside the remote control. It's been raining for the past three hours. And I have a 5pm kick-off - boys U19, preceded by a cycle ride up a rutted, puddle-pocked and very busy road.

Many, many people ask me, "Why do you bother?" I should point out one thing that's maybe not always clear on this blog. I love refereeing. On a good day. In that respect, I'm like almost any fan. Some days I want to write a love letter to the sport that I coach, that I ref, and that I played for over four decades. And there are days when I want to sign off with 'Dear Football, It's taken me a long time to reach this conclusion, but it's finally time we went our separate ways...' It's always enticing to imagine the potential freedom that lies on the other side of such a break. Yet the fear of a head-fucking, latter-life crisis in the resultant void always prevents me from having the guts to take that ultimate leap.

And as Mrs RT says, "You'd be back out there four weeks later anyway." And no one knows me better than Mrs RT. She lived through my three previous attempts to retire from playing, and once from coaching...

Frankly, my dear, I’ve had enough of your effing „emotions“

Game 23, 2019-20

The home team’s coach has been trying to get my attention to make a substitution, but there’s a lot going on so I haven’t noticed. When I see him waving his arms at me and yelling, I signal for him that it’s okay to make the substitution. „I’ve been standing here for two minutes trying to get your attention,“ he screams. I don’t like his tone, so I walk over to ask him to calm down. He continues to yell, so I show him the yellow card. Then he starts to yell about the yellow card.

I could show him a red now, but instead I fight back. „I couldn’t hear you because there are 22 players out there all yelling at the same time - perhaps you should yell at them to shut the fuck up. I come all the way out here to ref your game for my shite 22 Euros, and you expect me to put up with you screaming at me?“ He claims now that he wasn’t screaming, he just wanted to get my attention. You were screaming, I counter, and you were completely lacking respect. HIs assistant coach chimes in with, „He’s right, you know.“ Which for once is a very welcome intervention...

Why amateur refs are quitting in huge numbers

Game 22, 2019-20

The weekend before last, just south of the city where I ref, a 22-year-old referee was knocked unconscious by a player who'd just received a red card in a Level 11 game (see right). The referee had to be air-lifted to hospital. Thankfully, he recovered physically, but it made the national news and - as always when an incident like this happens - caused a lot of (temporary) agonising in the media and the football community about the way that referees are treated. Again and again I heard this figure quoted - over the past few years the number of registered referees in Germany has gone down from around 80,000 to 58,000. That's a massive and significant drop in numbers. There have been similar worries in the UK about the decline in the number of officials, and it's all for the same reason - who in his or her right fucking mind would want to spend their free time refereeing amateur football games in the current climate of General Anger About Everything?

I don't quote this exact statistic while shouting at the home team coach and the players of both teams in general during last night's Level 10 men's game. But I do forcefully make the point that "soon there'll be no one to referee your shitty games because we've all had enough of your shit behaviour, so shut your mouths and get on with the game, for Christ's sake." Still mad, I break into English: "You're acting like a bunch of fucking wankers..."

A very early yellow, and disallowing a beautiful goal

Games 20-21, 2019-20

I look at my watch - we've played 45 seconds of this boys' U19 game, and I've already shown the first caution. The away team's number 10 barrelled in to a challenge with no intent to play the ball, and every intent of sending the home team a signal. His opponent goes flying. Number 10 gets a bright yellow signal in return, along with a roar from my mouth that this is not how things are going to play out this afternoon. The home team's captain, shaping up to take the free-kick, whispers, "Thank you."

Lightning quick yellow...

My dad always used to say to me, "Make sure your first challenge counts. Go in hard so your opponent knows you're there and that you're serious." These were wasted words on me, unfortunately - as a lad I was built like a beanpole and tackling wasn't the strongest point of my game (my team-mates at the time said it wasn't part of my game at all). I wonder if the number 10 has a dad who offers him similar advice. He looks momentarily amazed that I've shown him a card so early on in the game, but then accepts it without any complaint...

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...