A&H

Short notice game

The Referee Store
Took a game as AR tonight 45 Mins before the meet time was wondering what’s the shortest notice anyone has taken a match excluding injury’s during a game.
5 minutes or so?

I ref mostly for AYSO, which is all volunteer based. I’d spent the weekend doing 16U and 19U games and at the end couple of us had gone over to the park where the last younger games were still taking place so we could man the admin tent. with my shoes off, and feet up at the table, no refs showed up to do the G12 final. So the two of us manning the table, and a third who happened to stop by step in as a grossly overqualified referee team for a 12U game. I ended up with the whistle and the darn thing was one of the hardest games I’ve had, even though it was 12U. Two teams with completely different styles and expectations for what fouls were, crazed groups of parent’s overwhelmed with the excitement of possibly winning the tournament, and a big strong (but not very agile) girl who was much bigger than anyone on the other team. (Coupled, of course, with that disconnect that comes from doing a lot of older games and dropping down to a little game.)
 
The same - 5 minutes (or as long as it took to get changed!) I did a game in the morning on my local league, and then went to mentor a newly qualified referee. I'd picked that up at short notice so didn't have a chance to get in contact with him. He never showed up so I ended up doing the game instead of watching it.
 
Probably not quite 5 minutes, but definitely took a line on les than 20 minutes notice. I was reffing a reserve's pre-season match and after the game, the manager came up to me and asked if I would be able to stick around for the first team match that followed as one of the AR's hadn't showed up.

I'd had a good match with the reserves and the ref for the firsts had a rough opening 20, so I got a few comments from the benches that they should have asked me to step into the middle instead. Made a change from the usual feedback you get on senior lines! Combination of baking sun, a rock-hard pitch and "pre-season fitness" meant my legs were struggling by the end of the game though, so we got back to the usual shouts of "keep up lino" in the end.
 
Waking off a Sunday League County Cup game. U18s are walking out to play and the manager asks me if I can ref as the assigned refs car had broken down en route. It was bouncing down with rain and I didn't want to do it but it was my first year and they were all ready to play so I thought stuff it I'll do the game. Can't remember what happened during the game but the manager was very grateful. I assume he was having to do it himself if I'd have said no
 
I've never really taken games at short notice as I've always worked on leagues that have good appointing procedures so I'd always have a game I good time.
So, the closest I came was a similar 5 mins. I had rocked up to a pitch to find everyman and his dog bucketing water off it. 20 yards on it was very clear despite everyone's best efforts no football was going to be played on this pitch that day.
As I was leaving a manager from another age group asked if I would ref theirs instead... Cursory glance at the pitch and that was also a no go.
 
As a L4 and L3 I would often get phone calls on the day of games where I was free with the dreaded "what are you doing today" question. Not sure why I ever bothered answering as the reply was always "not any more you aren't" 😂 Closest to kick off was less than an hour before when the referee had gone down in the warm up, they had to delay kick off by 15 minutes so that I could get home, get the car and travel there.
 
Less than 5 minutes. Finished one game and was asked by the next team on do to theirs as the ref hadn’t turned up
 
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