First match back after three years yesterday morning - I think it went as well as any game I'd done before, both decent groups of lads etc.
A few niggles here and there, and I need to try and improve my recognising a foul and then blowing the whistle, I had a few little delays in between my brain firing and then whistling, but hopefully that will come back with experience.
The only issue came when an away team player, out of nowhere and in response to an obvious foul, told me to 'F off, ref' - I went through things with the captains at the beginning about dissent, sin bins and OFFINABUS - so isolated him with the captain and sent him off.
He protested that he didn't say anything, even though everyone heard it - he continued giving it some from the sideline and his teammates gave him a telling along with myself - should I have asked him to leave the vicinity of the pitch after this, I don't know?
Away team were much better and ended up winning 5-1 with 10 players for most of the game - handshakes all around at the end, and some nice comments from players - away team players agreed it was a sending off and said he was a liability at times etc. - I went over to the sent off player to shake his hand and told him no hard feelings, he refused, still maintained he'd done nothing wrong and said he was going to report me. I had to laugh a bit.
Anyway, first game back and relatively smooth going.
A few niggles here and there, and I need to try and improve my recognising a foul and then blowing the whistle, I had a few little delays in between my brain firing and then whistling, but hopefully that will come back with experience.
The only issue came when an away team player, out of nowhere and in response to an obvious foul, told me to 'F off, ref' - I went through things with the captains at the beginning about dissent, sin bins and OFFINABUS - so isolated him with the captain and sent him off.
He protested that he didn't say anything, even though everyone heard it - he continued giving it some from the sideline and his teammates gave him a telling along with myself - should I have asked him to leave the vicinity of the pitch after this, I don't know?
Away team were much better and ended up winning 5-1 with 10 players for most of the game - handshakes all around at the end, and some nice comments from players - away team players agreed it was a sending off and said he was a liability at times etc. - I went over to the sent off player to shake his hand and told him no hard feelings, he refused, still maintained he'd done nothing wrong and said he was going to report me. I had to laugh a bit.
Anyway, first game back and relatively smooth going.