The Ref Stop

adult game on BUT under 16s off?

K

Kent Ref

RefChat Addict
Yesterday at 10.00 i reffed an adult game locally.

Both pitches there were good to play on BUT the under 16s game next door to my pitch was off due to "concerns over the winds". The forecast showed winds up to 30 MPH.

My game was not affected at all by the conditions.

I fear the health and safety culture is now totally out of control and games getting called of "at the drop of a hat" needlessly is the new normal.
 
The Ref Stop
We should always keep the weather forecast in mind. If you think it’s unsafe to play a full game, it’s probably best to postpone. There’s no need to put ourselves in challenging situations—being a grassroots referee is tough enough without additional complications., surely a early decision is better for all involved. Several games were canceled yesterday due to the weather. Each referee needs to make there own call.
 
Kent Ref said:
Yesterday at 10.00 i reffed an adult game locally.

Both pitches there were good to play on BUT the under 16s game next door to my pitch was off due to "concerns over the winds". The forecast showed winds up to 30 MPH.

My game was not affected at all by the conditions.

I fear the health and safety culture is now totally out of control and games getting called of "at the drop of a hat" needlessly is the new normal.
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Yes, games are called off all too readily
I was taken off a game last week due to injury. It was called off at 8am (7:45pm KO) due to snow on the pitch
The snow had completely melted by 2pm. I know the pitch well. The game would have survived had my calf muscle not let us all down!
 
Big Cat said:
Yes, games are called off all too readily
I was taken off a game last week due to injury. It was called off at 8am (7:45pm KO) due to snow on the pitch
The snow had completely melted by 2pm. I know the pitch well. The game would have survived had my calf muscle not let us all down!
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I'm not sure they are, you have to take into account the distance teams maybe traveling.
I think to many games go a head without thing about safety of all involved. Again a early call is better than waiting for everyone to arrive.
 
Egg man said:
I'm not sure they are, you have to take into account the distance teams maybe traveling.
I think to many games go a head without thing about safety of all involved. Again a early call is better than waiting for everyone to arrive.
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I'm across all the Learning Material & Modules available to L4's and am very much aware of all the considerations and am very much in tune with the weather and ground conditions. I've a fair amount of experience in terms of pitch inspections. I'm yet to regret a decision. I'm not reckless, I won't tolerate frozen ground to any degree, I think summer hard ground is much more of a safety consideration than that associated with rain and wind. I won't allow games to become farcical. I'm aware that decisions made prior to the away side travelling are much more difficult. Once we're at the ground, it would take very compelling reasons for me to postpone, but I'd avoid farce and would be disappointed with myself if I didn't get a game finished..
Accounting for all of the above, I'm remain confident in stating, 'games are called off too readily with respect to wind and rain'
This is a generalization that I stand by, it's contributing to end-of-season problems and is somewhat reflective of today's risk averse culture. .
 
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When it comes to wind it isn't just on the pitch you need to worry about, but also the surroundings, such as are there any structures or trees that could blow onto the pitch. I can understand why they might be more cautious about a youth game than adult, there's an enhanced duty of care and safety.

I was doing a pitch inspection at a step 3 ground years ago where the players and management were adamant it was playable, they could see me putting the ball down and it not staying still. I was erring towards calling it off as it is farcical when the ball won't stay still for restarts, at that point a huge section of the stand roof below off with part of it landing on the pitch. I didn't even need to make a decision after that, it was made for me, but had I gone ahead and played and that had happened during the game someone could have been killed.
 
As you know, matches at step 6 and above are rarely called off without a valid reason. However, in park football, the decision to cancel a match is sometimes taken out of the hands of the clubs and referees, and is instead made by the council
 
Egg man said:
As you know, matches at step 6 and above are rarely called off without a valid reason. However, in park football, the decision to cancel a match is sometimes taken out of the hands of the clubs and referees, and is instead made by the council
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Agree, but clearly not in this case given the game on the next pitch went ahead.
 
RustyRef said:
Agree, but clearly not in this case given the game on the next pitch went ahead.
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Different club and referee obviously made the call with information they had and the incoming weather, not everyone will agree and another referee may have played the game. As we know it's a game of opinions.
 
That game on the pitch next to me would have been perfectly ok.

People are adoping an over-cautious atitude. I believe the home club took the decision on the basis of the PREDICTED 30 MPH wind, that never happened.

Sad, but the culture is not good.
 
Kent Ref said:
People are adoping an over-cautious atitude. I believe the home club took the decision on the basis of the PREDICTED 30 MPH wind, that never happened.

Sad, but the culture is not good.
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How could they have guessed the wind wouldn't come? In hampshire a man was killed be a fallen tree, in dorset trees came down onto park pitches, it only takes about 10MPH+ to prevent the ball staying still at restarts
 
OnlyUseMeWhistle said:
How could they have guessed the wind wouldn't come? In hampshire a man was killed be a fallen tree, in dorset trees came down onto park pitches, it only takes about 10MPH+ to prevent the ball staying still at restarts
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Next time i see the weather says 10 MPH i'll call the game off then. Of course not.

I played a game with no problems 20 metres from the other pitch.

It's just insane the current safety culture. On this occasion they were wrong to postpone,
 
Kent Ref said:
Next time i see the weather says 10 MPH i'll call the game off then. Of course not.

I played a game with no problems 20 metres from the other pitch.

It's just insane the current safety culture. On this occasion they were wrong to postpone,
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Please be serious, a storm that put towns underwater and killed several across the South was scheduled to have winds triple that, was my point.

It's nothing to do with "safety culture", factors would have included travel distance, input from teams, age of participants.
 
Not withstanding the one person in 70,000000 who tragically died and the nightmare experience of those 600 homes that were flooded in Wales, the vast vast majority of us were slightly inconvenienced by 'some travel disruption and a need to take precaution' as per the yellow warning that most of the country was faced with. However, thousands of games took place over the weekend despite some typically autumnal wet & windy weather, whilst many games were justifiably postponed and a handful would have kicked off when they shouldn't have done. It was just a typical deep autumnal depression, the likes of which is fairly common and does not marry with the safety hyperbole expressed above. @Kent Ref seem like minded with an intuition that games are called off unnecessarily more than they should be, although we can't quantify this belief because it's experiential. However, it's undeniable that more games are called off now than in previous decades and this is causing major problems come the end of the season, paradoxically threatening the safety by playing in four or five games in a week sometimes on rock hard summer ground. I'm conservative by nature and prefer an emphasis on playing the game in autumnal and wintry conditions despite it being a leveller. I'm not keen on the emerging expectation of only playing when conditions are good or better. Farce easily trumps safety when waterlogging is considered, but I won't abide frozen ground as that's very dangerous
 
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it was difficult yesterday i had two youth teams that just wanted to play football no serious incidents no cards required. YES the wind had an effect a pen for example had to be retaken as the wind kept blowing the ball off the mark but with goal kicks I had to [you insert an obvious interpretation of common sense] there were no complaints as say the teams just wanted to play the game BUT I do recall high winds on a u16 game think was a couple years back where it became so farcical it was time to abandon the game. I have though known youth clubs call games off even on a 3g because high winds were blowing the small goals etc that tend to get put to one side on an 11 v 11 pitch and that can of course be dangerous.
 
I did an U15's game and it was pretty frustrating for the players, but they got through the 80 mins without any safety issues. Both decent sets of lads and they adapted very well to the conditions (just kept the ball on the deck). I've heard of over games in the area that were called off. The ones that were surrounded by trees etc I could understand, but I reckon the others would have been ok.
 
I called my game off on Saturday, and probably got it incorrect. The inspecting official phoned me at 10:30 and informed me that he knows the pitch well and, while playable at the time of speaking, it would not take much more water. The forecast was for an hour and a half more drizzle to midday, then heavier rain all afternoon. I made the judgment call based on this information that it was very likely to be a lot of wasted expense for everyone to turn up for me to declare the pitch unplayable close to kick off or even worse, mid way through the match.
Seems like the heavier rain never materialised and we could have got the game on, however I do think the wind conditions could have easily made it farcical also.

With that said, my work place is flooded today, I had to be lifted in to my office on a tele handler, so we got the rain eventually 😆
 
OnlyUseMeWhistle said:
Please be serious, a storm that put towns underwater and killed several across the South was scheduled to have winds triple that, was my point.

It's nothing to do with "safety culture", factors would have included travel distance, input from teams, age of participants.
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On this ocassion this was not the thinking.

16 year olds travelling from a whole 7 miles away. Very dangerous!

The ref who was supposed to ref next door told me the home team lost 11-1 four weeks ago in a cup game - to the same away team. The game was called off at 9am, which was very late.

Excuses not to play it looks very much like.

You seems to be overlooking the fact i reffed an adult game next door with no issues a all. I was there but you were not.
 
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