A&H

1 Neutral

MattTheRef

Well-Known Member
Level 4 Referee
I've been appointed to a step 6 game on Saturday, I currently have 1 neutral assistant appointed.

I would assume I keep them bench side for both halves? Would I continue to ask my CAR to only give ball in and out of play and off sides? Ignoring fouls & misconduct.
 
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I've been appointed to a step 6 game on Saturday, I currently have 1 neutral assistant appointed.

I would assume I keep them bench side for both halves? Would I continue to ask my CAR to only give ball in and out of play and off sides? Ignoring fouls & misconduct.
A tricky situationx but yes you are going to want to keep the neutral at one side.

There are then 2 options:
You do outside lefts one half and outside rights the other keeping the CAR with his own defensive line.
OR each team nominates a CAR to do a half each covering their own defensive lines.
 
Is this a normal occurance?

of course starting with 2 ars and one gets injured/ref gets injured, one calls off hour before etc is something we accept will crop up, but, to recieve an appointment with 1 Ar?

certainly where I am, the games gets the 3 officials, or, 1
it would never be allocated as ref plus 1
at a push, ref , Ar and tba.

in short, come midday on the day, it would be expected its ref plus 2 or simply ref, if 2 Ars were not avail,
Any cut to ref plus 1 would be due to unexpected factors in the time leading uo to ko or then during the game itself
 
Is this a normal occurance?

of course starting with 2 ars and one gets injured/ref gets injured, one calls off hour before etc is something we accept will crop up, but, to recieve an appointment with 1 Ar?

certainly where I am, the games gets the 3 officials, or, 1
it would never be allocated as ref plus 1
at a push, ref , Ar and tba.

in short, come midday on the day, it would be expected its ref plus 2 or simply ref, if 2 Ars were not avail,
Any cut to ref plus 1 would be due to unexpected factors in the time leading uo to ko or then during the game itself
It's down to the shortage we are experiencing currently.

I actually think 1 neutral ref and two CARs actually would be the most beneficial solution as the +1 could be allocated to ref another game.

Although they might be praying on a postponement elsewhere and another ref then becoming available.

It's a sad state of affairs really that even in the NLS appointment secs are struggling to find bodies to fill the games.
 
It's down to the shortage we are experiencing currently.

I actually think 1 neutral ref and two CARs actually would be the most beneficial solution as the +1 could be allocated to ref another game.

Although they might be praying on a postponement elsewhere and another ref then becoming available.

It's a sad state of affairs really that even in the NLS appointment secs are struggling to find bodies to fill the games.


Here yes, games which should/could/would have Ars are getting to Friday as just referee, with the potential ars ending up reffing lower league games.
Semi pro games going ahead, 500 fans, one ref.
 
Is this a normal occurance?

of course starting with 2 ars and one gets injured/ref gets injured, one calls off hour before etc is something we accept will crop up, but, to recieve an appointment with 1 Ar?

certainly where I am, the games gets the 3 officials, or, 1
it would never be allocated as ref plus 1
at a push, ref , Ar and tba.

in short, come midday on the day, it would be expected its ref plus 2 or simply ref, if 2 Ars were not avail,
Any cut to ref plus 1 would be due to unexpected factors in the time leading uo to ko or then during the game itself
This is my 2nd fixture on the league - first one I had 2 neutrals.

I've just looked at the rest of the fixtures for the weekend's game.
10 games
10 Referees
2 games without ARs
5 games with 1 AR
3 games fully covered.

Perhaps they will chop and change to give 2 ARs across more fixtures. Unsure tbh.
 
With one NAR, I would also cheat my positioning more to the other end and expect the NAR to be ready to be more involved than usual. (I've done the same when I have had one strong NAR and one newbie/very weak NAR.)
 
Had this recently (I was the single AR). We spoke to both teams beforehand and agreed that the home club would field a CAR and that they would take one end at ko so that he was benchside 1st half (on own LB) and I was there for the second, when more things happen and the temperature tends to rise.

Not ideal, but it worked out ok on the day, though the game wasn't close so that probably contributed.
 
I've been appointed to a step 6 game on Saturday, I currently have 1 neutral assistant appointed.

I would assume I keep them bench side for both halves? Would I continue to ask my CAR to only give ball in and out of play and off sides? Ignoring fouls & misconduct.
The default position is that the Home club has to provide a CAR for the whole match. If the club's agree to split between the 2 Half's, then that is ok. But you have no power to insist.

On their roles, completely your decision. A lot will depend on who they find. Maybe a qualified referee who doesn't do Saturday, so you ask anything. You could just ask for ball in/out.

There was a FA Cup match where the referee & other official went down, so one of the AR had to take over. I don't know if he got a CAR involved

Whatever you ask will reflect on your performance.
 
I had that situation last Sunday, kept the club AR with his own back line for both halves.

Home side didn't want to provide a club AR for 45' so were happy with the situation.

Helped that the club AR was a qualified referee and 'observer' - he told me.

Pretty one sided game so no KMI offsides to get excited about.
 
Check the competition rules and / or match official directives as there may be something in there for it. For example, at contrib it used to be that the two clubs could agree on a replacement, but if they didn't the game would be continued with the two remaining officials. What usually happened is one club would protest against the chosen official on the basis he wasn't independent, but they'd soon back down once they realised if they didn't accept him their defence or forward line wouldn't have an AR.

You'll probably also find that if they don't find a second assistant by the day of the game they will remove the other assistant and let you referee it on your own.
 
Check the competition rules and / or match official directives as there may be something in there for it. For example, at contrib it used to be that the two clubs could agree on a replacement, but if they didn't the game would be continued with the two remaining officials. What usually happened is one club would protest against the chosen official on the basis he wasn't independent, but they'd soon back down once they realised if they didn't accept him their defence or forward line wouldn't have an AR.

You'll probably also find that if they don't find a second assistant by the day of the game they will remove the other assistant and let you referee it on your own.
Problem is I think the one missing AR is rarely covered.

You're correct of course, always says what should happen if referee does not show and if there are no neutral ARs, but don't think I've ever seen it stipulated about what should happen if only 1 neutral AR.
 
Check the competition rules and / or match official directives as there may be something in there for it. For example, at contrib it used to be that the two clubs could agree on a replacement, but if they didn't the game would be continued with the two remaining officials. What usually happened is one club would protest against the chosen official on the basis he wasn't independent, but they'd soon back down once they realised if they didn't accept him their defence or forward line wouldn't have an AR.

You'll probably also find that if they don't find a second assistant by the day of the game they will remove the other assistant and let you referee it on your own.
That's what happened in the FA cup tie last year. The clubs wouldn't agree so the AR had to referee with one AR. And since he was an EFL assistant hadn't refereed a decent quality match for a few years...
 
That's what happened in the FA cup tie last year. The clubs wouldn't agree so the AR had to referee with one AR. And since he was an EFL assistant hadn't refereed a decent quality match for a few years...

Not dissimilar to when an SG1 or SG2 referee ends up running the line after an assistant gets injured. Doesn't happen often, but they can look like a fish out of water, what with them not having held a flag for many years.
 
Not dissimilar to when an SG1 or SG2 referee ends up running the line after an assistant gets injured. Doesn't happen often, but they can look like a fish out of water, what with them not having held a flag for many years.

I suggested years ago that cat 1s do two lines a season, even in a reserve game, just to keep them fresh on line, and to give them appreciation for the ar role

instead, as you say, we wait till it happens and then go, what do you expect, he aint held a flag for 7 years
 
I suggested years ago that cat 1s do two lines a season, even in a reserve game, just to keep them fresh on line, and to give them appreciation for the ar role

instead, as you say, we wait till it happens and then go, what do you expect, he aint held a flag for 7 years

grief man, dont come on here making sensible suggestions
 
grief man, dont come on here making sensible suggestions

Someone considering my post as sensible, am framing that.

but yes, we wait till it happens then wonder why the replacemenf Ar is lost.

two games, a womens and a reserves, it would benefit the ref on those games too to have an experienced ref helping them out, even giving them positional pointers etc
 
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Someone considering my post as sensible, am framing that.

but yes, we wait till it happens then wonder why the replacemenf Ar is lost.

two games, a womens and a reserves, it would benefit the ref on those games too to have an experienced ref helping them out, even giving them positional pointers etc

it makes so so much sense, for the reasons stated. i dont see why it wouldnt be considered at all levels where you have full time specialist refereeing roles.
 
it makes so so much sense, for the reasons stated. i dont see why it wouldnt be considered at all levels where you have full time specialist refereeing roles.

Well, I know exactly why here it was dismissed out of hand......

next!
 
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It's down to the shortage we are experiencing currently.

I actually think 1 neutral ref and two CARs actually would be the most beneficial solution as the +1 could be allocated to ref another game.

Although they might be praying on a postponement elsewhere and another ref then becoming available.

It's a sad state of affairs really that even in the NLS appointment secs are struggling to find bodies to fill the games.

I've thought this for a while, it'd be a great way of freeing up 10-20 L6/7 officials each week at step 6 in Cornwall.
I think the flaw in this idea is that L4 officials need to have a minimum of 10 qualifying games each season and a qualifying game must have 2 neutral AR's I believe.
 
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