The Ref Stop

Free Kicks about 9.15 metres (10 yards in old money) outside the penalty area

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haywain

haywain

the voice of reason
Level 7 Referee
A useful tip, imho, that I've heard from two senior referees this year.

If you award a free kick in this position and you are pacing out the distance for the wall, never line the wall up on the edge of the penalty area, i.e. on the white line. Always put them in front of or behind the line so that, if a player in the wall handles the ball, you don't have the problem of deciding whether he/she was inside or outside the box.
 
The Ref Stop
I've also found that walking the distance backwards is a good one, yes it has it's down sides that you can't see if anything happens in the box but it does eliminate players moving the ball forward
 
But the wall is going to try and jump to stop the ball so there is no point trying to keep it out the box because of that 10 yard requirement
 
Another tip, use the field markings to measure your 10 yards, (eg. The edge of the D is 4 yards from the penalty area line which is 6 yards from the penalty mark so you would line the wall up on the penalty mark.) Also council lawn mowers are usually either 5 or eight yards wide so using the lines from the cutters (that you roughly measured in your pre match inspection) ;)you can gauge the 10 yards without pacing it out. It also makes you sound like you know what you're doing, when the players say " how do you know that's 10 yards ref? You didn't measure it" to which you tell him your logic :D
 
i'm not understanding that one, craig. mind you i have just sat through 140 minutes of harry potter so my brain is a little numb :)
 
On free kicks I was told by one of our RA members who refs on the FL that you tell the kicker that your assistant is watch and will inform you if the ball is moved. (will only work with NAR)
And then he counts out load whilst stepping forward ie. 1, 2, 3, 4, etc..... When he gets to 9 he says and 10 but takes a step on and so in fact the wall is almost 11 yards back. I use this now and I dont have any problems with people complaining about the required distance.

A sound bit of advice in my book.
 
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In my first ever game I paced out "11 steps" as I had measured the 10 yards out in my back garden beforehand and worked out that 11 of my normal steps was 10 yards.

Unbelievably one of the defenders shouts out "That's 11 yards ref!" assuming each step I made was one yard.

Not expecting the comment the best I could come out with was, with a smile, "When you are only 5' 8" with short legs, it's 11 steps".
 
I pace it out on the pitch-check. Centre circel to spot. Pen spot to D, goal line to pen spot. I find different days cold or warm, can make a difference of a half yard or so.

Also, at end of game, my 'normal' stride is a bit longer - I guess because muscles and tendons have stretched a bit.

Mind you, over here, everyone thinks in metric, so I rarely get asked for '10', but "Can i Have the nine point one five please ref?' to which I reply, "No, but I'll give you ten paces instead"
 
Blimey, I'm 5'10" and I take twelve steps. That said, I think I can sell twelve steps better than eleven.
 
i think that there's an art to making it look like a pace and not a stride, mick

i think you've cracked it :)
 
There's a bloke who sits near me at Southend United and the other week a tall referee only took 8 steps and he sounded such an idiot shouted every time he counted out steps I really wanted to just slap him in the face!
 
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