Abandonment at Darwin v South Liverpool

As people will have seen on social media, the match at Darwin was abandoned. This was, reportedy, due to crowd abuse of the an 18 year old AR.

We don't want to be commenting on the match, but it does prose the questions - at the start of the season, are the league appointing too inexperienced officials as AR? We know of the general shortage of referees and a number of referees would eb on holiday, at cricket, etc; so the pressure is to appoint people to these Step 6 leagues too soon. OR is it that Step 6 leagues expect too much of their officials, thinking that all referees are Oliver / Taylor standard?

We know Step 6 players and clubs are improving with money and extra training, but the refereeing is not progressing at the same rate with the shortage of referees.

Do Step 6 clubs need a "wake-up" message from the FA?

lincs22 said:

As people will have seen on social media, the match at Darwin was abandoned. This was, reportedy, due to crowd abuse of the an 18 year old AR.

We don't want to be commenting on the match, but it does prose the questions - at the start of the season, are the league appointing too inexperienced officials as AR? We know of the general shortage of referees and a number of referees would eb on holiday, at cricket, etc; so the pressure is to appoint people to these Step 6 leagues too soon. OR is it that Step 6 leagues expect too much of their officials, thinking that all referees are Oliver / Taylor standard?

We know Step 6 players and clubs are improving with money and extra training, but the refereeing is not progressing at the same rate with the shortage of referees.

Do Step 6 clubs need a "wake-up" message from the FA?

Click to expand...

Sounds like the abuse was of a violent sexual nature towards an 18 year old. Doesn’t matter if it’s Sian Massey-Ellis or a fresh faced youngster on promotion. It’s vile and in a grassroots league they’d face expulsion.

lincs22 said:

As people will have seen on social media, the match at Darwin was abandoned. This was, reportedy, due to crowd abuse of the an 18 year old AR.

We don't want to be commenting on the match, but it does prose the questions - at the start of the season, are the league appointing too inexperienced officials as AR? We know of the general shortage of referees and a number of referees would eb on holiday, at cricket, etc; so the pressure is to appoint people to these Step 6 leagues too soon. OR is it that Step 6 leagues expect too much of their officials, thinking that all referees are Oliver / Taylor standard?

We know Step 6 players and clubs are improving with money and extra training, but the refereeing is not progressing at the same rate with the shortage of referees.

Do Step 6 clubs need a "wake-up" message from the FA?

Click to expand...

As a former Step 7 appointments officer I can tell you that the opening weeks of the season (until the 2nd qualifying round of The FA Cup) it is hellish difficult to appoint. Clubs want to get match fitness up to speed so ask for midweek games to be arranged, also so they can avoid power bills for floodlights later in the season. Games come thick and fast and very rarely I had to send some referees out on their own.

lincs22 said:

As people will have seen on social media, the match at Darwin was abandoned. This was, reportedy, due to crowd abuse of the an 18 year old AR.

We don't want to be commenting on the match, but it does prose the questions - at the start of the season, are the league appointing too inexperienced officials as AR? We know of the general shortage of referees and a number of referees would eb on holiday, at cricket, etc; so the pressure is to appoint people to these Step 6 leagues too soon. OR is it that Step 6 leagues expect too much of their officials, thinking that all referees are Oliver / Taylor standard?

We know Step 6 players and clubs are improving with money and extra training, but the refereeing is not progressing at the same rate with the shortage of referees.

Do Step 6 clubs need a "wake-up" message from the FA?

Click to expand...

Can we not make this about the standard, quality, or experience of officials? Trying not to comment on what is on social media but I will say we're far beyond standards of officiating if what is alleged is true.

Where does a referee cut their teeth as an assistant referee to gain said experience in the first place?

Step 6 (and in some corners of England, step 7) is the lowest level of the game where assistant referees are appointed so naturally you're going to get a wide variation in experience and skill..the teams at the level have to expect that.

Also, experience isn't everything. I've seen some very poor 'experienced' ARs and some of the best I have come across have been less experienced.

I think you have got it right in that the expectation placed upon match officials, sometimes, is too high.

I think a solution, or certainly would help is, Where there is the ability too, inexperience should be paired up with experience. Far too often I have done games where each referee is new at their level.

I had one game as a level 4 with 2 16 year old assistants doing their first games on the line and I myself was a fairly brand new level 4. Nothing serious happened but if it had we'd have been out of our depth, for sure.

Where not possible clubs have to accept that referees, at all levels, are still learning at times.

@JamesL

I am trying to get the conversation about the (now) unrealistic expectations of Step 6 clubs for the standard of officials they are being appointed to. Whereas, previously, the AR learnt on Step 7 leagues (effectively county leagues); they first experience (other than local FA semis) has to be at Step 6. I am wanting the FA and the Leagues to be more open about the availability of referees at that level, and they are the lowest level- rather than the FIFA standard the spectators want.

There are some step 7 leagues that still appoint ARs but I understand your point @lincs22

I’m a sense the expectations are the same regardless of level to some extent - they all expect officials to be ‘elite’ standard.

lincs22 said:

@JamesL

I am trying to get the conversation about the (now) unrealistic expectations of Step 6 clubs for the standard of officials they are being appointed to. Whereas, previously, the AR learnt on Step 7 leagues (effectively county leagues); they first experience (other than local FA semis) has to be at Step 6. I am wanting the FA and the Leagues to be more open about the availability of referees at that level, and they are the lowest level- rather than the FIFA standard the spectators want.

Click to expand...

Then I think we are largely in agreement.

I think as well, in a lot of areas step 5 was refereed by level 3 refs and level 4 assistants whereas now they are level 4 refs and level 7-5 assistants and I am pretty certain the club in question were once step 5 as well so they will have seen a change in the level of referee that referees their games... But no excuses all the same

Several Step 7 leagues near me still appoint ARs near me, and it’s a much more comfortable place to pick up the skill than 5/6 I found

This is one of the areas where the development in the UK is strikingly different from the US. We have the expectation of ARs at much younger/lower levels than in England. For an R, that gives development in having to be aware of everything--but at the expense of teamwork being an early tool. For ARs, it means they start much later. Part of the US development is driven by AYSO, which is the largest youth soccer organization, and which uses entirely volunteer officials. So many of the refs out there started in AYSO as a parent or sibling coerced into being a volunteer and getting the bug. AYSO typically uses ARs beginning at 10U--which is played 7 v 7 with build out lines, so ARs aren't really needed, but it gets people started. And if parents are paying a lot more for club soccer than AYSO, they don't tend to be enthusiastic about not having the same referee teams there are in AYSO. (That said, the US (across sports) is facing a referee challenge that was exacerbated by COVID, and for AYSO there seems to be an impact of a decline in overall voluntarism in many places.)

Further aside: for high school soccer, which is not played under the LOTG, but under high school rules that have minor variations, it is very common to use the dual system, with two whistles on the field. I'm not a fan overall (I only did HS for one season, which was cut short by injury), but it is a less expensive way to get a second control person on the field. The season I did HS, many schools that wanted to pay for a full 3 couldn't get them as there weren't enough refs and the assigner told them the best he could do was 2.

There are also numerous county leagues that still appoint assistants. For example, around me there's the Middlesex County league and their Premier Division, which I think is step 7, appoints assistants. There's also things like the Isthmian U21 league, and the numerous professional club academies, there are opportunities for ARs to learn below step 6. Not sure if that is the case in all of the country though.