BlindButFair
New Member
This post is partly to debrief and partly for input.
Had an interesting match today. This is about my 9th (?) game as a centre, so very new still! In fact I had not ever given out a yellow card before today - partly due to being new but also refereeing very young players who have been well behaved.
Today I had U15 girls, top division, Red vs Blue. Red is expecting to win the match. In this competition at this level we have club ARs who call offside as well as ball out of play. Before the match Red coach tells me he thinks the CARs cheat by flagging offside to prevent his team from scoring. I tell him I'll watch the CARs and overrule when necessary (which I would do anyway).
First half straightforward, Red leading 1-0 at HT. Early in the second half Blue equalise.
Then Red score on a counterattack. I look over at the CAR, no flag, award the goal. Then shouts of "offside, offside!" from the Blue bench. I run over and confer with the CAR who says he's 100% sure that Red committed an offside offence, so I disallow the goal and award an IFK.
Red bench is furious, saying it was onside and that "I told you about this before the match". I tell them I am not going to overrule the CAR unless I'm certain he's wrong, which I wasn't, so blow the whistle for play to continue.
There are a couple of other tight offside calls which Red complain about, and later the Red coach says to his players "we just have to concentrate, we're up against it, the ref's against us". Ahhhh. I should have cautioned him (obviously) but chickened out, having never given a card before and knowing that he was close to blowing up. As soon as play moved on I realised I'd made a mistake and that now all of the Red players were going to follow his lead... which they did. Constant low level (and not even that low level) dissent for the rest of the match. I didn't give any cards but probably should have, or at least given a stern verbal warning. Example: "How is that offside?" "Look the AR's flag is up!" "But she was behind the player when it was passed" "I don't think so" "How can you blow the whistle when you don't even know why it was offside?"
Late on there is a 1 v 1 which results in a Red player going down, I thought it was a fair challenge, she disagrees and charges the Blue player off the ball, knocking her over - easy yellow - at least I've done that now!
After the match Red coach complains that he'd warned me about the CARs, that their season is ruined because of the 1-1 draw (they've only played 5 matches! And they missed a penalty too) etc. I just tell him I wasn't prepared to overrule CAR unless I was certain. One of his players yells "you're a disgrace, you should go back to ref school!" but when I look over they're all in a bunch and I can't tell who said it.
So...
1. It's hard with CARs isn't it? Some are obviously better than others, many seem a little incompetent (eg behind play often), I don't believe this one was cheating, but it's very hard to get to the front of play to call them myself on a counterattack on a full sized pitch
2. Any tips for dealing with dissent, aside from the obvious that I should have cautioned the coach? I think my personality outside of refereeing works against me here - I'm more likely to want to talk to people to resolve situations rather than tell them off, and I have thick skin so can ignore insults that I probably shouldn't - I think I need to work on that a bit for refereeing!
Had an interesting match today. This is about my 9th (?) game as a centre, so very new still! In fact I had not ever given out a yellow card before today - partly due to being new but also refereeing very young players who have been well behaved.
Today I had U15 girls, top division, Red vs Blue. Red is expecting to win the match. In this competition at this level we have club ARs who call offside as well as ball out of play. Before the match Red coach tells me he thinks the CARs cheat by flagging offside to prevent his team from scoring. I tell him I'll watch the CARs and overrule when necessary (which I would do anyway).
First half straightforward, Red leading 1-0 at HT. Early in the second half Blue equalise.
Then Red score on a counterattack. I look over at the CAR, no flag, award the goal. Then shouts of "offside, offside!" from the Blue bench. I run over and confer with the CAR who says he's 100% sure that Red committed an offside offence, so I disallow the goal and award an IFK.
Red bench is furious, saying it was onside and that "I told you about this before the match". I tell them I am not going to overrule the CAR unless I'm certain he's wrong, which I wasn't, so blow the whistle for play to continue.
There are a couple of other tight offside calls which Red complain about, and later the Red coach says to his players "we just have to concentrate, we're up against it, the ref's against us". Ahhhh. I should have cautioned him (obviously) but chickened out, having never given a card before and knowing that he was close to blowing up. As soon as play moved on I realised I'd made a mistake and that now all of the Red players were going to follow his lead... which they did. Constant low level (and not even that low level) dissent for the rest of the match. I didn't give any cards but probably should have, or at least given a stern verbal warning. Example: "How is that offside?" "Look the AR's flag is up!" "But she was behind the player when it was passed" "I don't think so" "How can you blow the whistle when you don't even know why it was offside?"
Late on there is a 1 v 1 which results in a Red player going down, I thought it was a fair challenge, she disagrees and charges the Blue player off the ball, knocking her over - easy yellow - at least I've done that now!
After the match Red coach complains that he'd warned me about the CARs, that their season is ruined because of the 1-1 draw (they've only played 5 matches! And they missed a penalty too) etc. I just tell him I wasn't prepared to overrule CAR unless I was certain. One of his players yells "you're a disgrace, you should go back to ref school!" but when I look over they're all in a bunch and I can't tell who said it.
So...
1. It's hard with CARs isn't it? Some are obviously better than others, many seem a little incompetent (eg behind play often), I don't believe this one was cheating, but it's very hard to get to the front of play to call them myself on a counterattack on a full sized pitch
2. Any tips for dealing with dissent, aside from the obvious that I should have cautioned the coach? I think my personality outside of refereeing works against me here - I'm more likely to want to talk to people to resolve situations rather than tell them off, and I have thick skin so can ignore insults that I probably shouldn't - I think I need to work on that a bit for refereeing!
Recognizing at the time when it starts is the hardest part. Then you have the stepped approach. I think it’s important that everyone in the game knows. So, when you give that first warning/YC/sin bin, do the performance, use hand gestures, make sure everyone gets the message. And if it carries on don’t be afraid to stop the game and use cards.
