The Ref Stop

Open Age Young referee threatened

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TobyTheRef

New Member
Level 7 Referee
Was due to have my first pre-season game yesterday but it got called off at the last minute, so decided to find a match to watch down at the local park.

Young ref in the middle (he told me it was only his third game) and it was a really tough one for him, lots of stupidity and needless dissent from both sides, the ref unfortunately was struggling to get the game under control and seemed quite reluctant to get the cards out.

Anyway, mid way through the second half, big striker gets completely wiped out just in front of me - at least a yellow in my book, personally - ref blew for the free kick but no card, cue the big striker to square up to the ref and say 'keep on like this, ref and you're going to get a slap' or something to that effect.

The poor lad was almost in tears at that point, he barely got involved for the rest of the game and blew up a bit early.

I went to chat to him after to make sure he was okay - he told me that he was done with reffing, he'd been verbally abused in all of his games so far and hadn't had much support from the local FA.

So we've lost another young ref after only 3 games, all of which were supposed to be pre-season 'friendlies'.

Anyway, I offered to get in touch with his RDO to speak to him and report the striker but he said not to bother. All a bit demoralising.
 
The Ref Stop
TobyTheRef said:
Was due to have my first pre-season game yesterday but it got called off at the last minute, so decided to find a match to watch down at the local park.

Young ref in the middle (he told me it was only his third game) and it was a really tough one for him, lots of stupidity and needless dissent from both sides, the ref unfortunately was struggling to get the game under control and seemed quite reluctant to get the cards out.

Anyway, mid way through the second half, big striker gets completely wiped out just in front of me - at least a yellow in my book, personally - ref blew for the free kick but no card, cue the big striker to square up to the ref and say 'keep on like this, ref and you're going to get a slap' or something to that effect.

The poor lad was almost in tears at that point, he barely got involved for the rest of the game and blew up a bit early.

I went to chat to him after to make sure he was okay - he told me that he was done with reffing, he'd been verbally abused in all of his games so far and hadn't had much support from the local FA.

So we've lost another young ref after only 3 games, all of which were supposed to be pre-season 'friendlies'.

Anyway, I offered to get in touch with his RDO to speak to him and report the striker but he said not to bother. All a bit demoralising.
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Sad to read. There are so many questions to ask to drill down into reasons why things happened as they did as well as the apparent lack of support from his CFA. However, you did the best you could - even though he said not to bother, you could still contact the RDO if you feel you want to.
 
a young referee doing only their third game in an open age game (that doesn't seem sensible at the best of times) - how young is young though? was it a safeguarding issue at all?

he should have been assigned a mentor to help who would hopefully be on hand to help with these sorts of things...
 
It's a 'tough gig'. Always has been. Won't get any better the way society is going

Arguably, some of the lowest level OA football is not the best place to start. Newbies pick up games at random without knowing what they're getting into. Speaking from experience, the type of game which will lead to serious problems, are friendlies between random sides who may not even be affiliated and/or vets games or any unofficial OA tournament, or something else of that ilk. Vets games in particular
Any game which the newbie finds off their own back. Any game to which they're not appointed by an experienced appointment's officer (one that doesn't just assign refs at random). These apps over which games find refs and refs find games.... lead to a lot of tears I should think
 
Feel for him, but your 3rd game really shouldn't be open age Sunday league, they need to get some experience at academies or youth football. As @Big Cat has alluded to, would be interesting to know what kind of game it was, and whether he was appointed by the competition or found it himself on one of the apps.
 
I suspect that somebody knew he was a referee and asked him to do it. There is the question, why did he accept such a match after his previous experience (but that is not the problem).

The lack of the experience meant he was scared to issue cards - a lack of training.

In USA (I recall), you can only do open age once you have successfully done a number of junior age matches. Perhaps this could be plan but the shortage of referees for OA means this cannot happen.
 
I have no idea why anyone would start with a potentially unaffiliated OA game as others have said. When I did my first OA game, my appointments officer admitted it wasn't the easiest game I could have been given, but what he did do was make sure I had 2 experienced ARs with me, and he only gave me that game because I had almost 2 years of youth experience by this point, and 15 OA lines. Even then, I found it difficult to manage, as it was 2 feisty sides, a player was sent off for VC after about 60/70 mins, 2 others were very lucky not to get 2YC and it finished 3-2, with the winning goal being quite late in the game iirc.

For some leagues this isn't possible, but I honestly believe under no circumstances should newly qualified officials (particularly younger ones) be finding games on their own/on these apps, and nor should they be anywhere near games like this one without experience first.

I do think some experience should be mandatory before you can do OA games, but the shortage of referees in England is a huge barrier to that ever happening.
 
Gabriel said:
I have no idea why anyone would start with a potentially unaffiliated OA game as others have said. When I did my first OA game, my appointments officer admitted it wasn't the easiest game I could have been given, but what he did do was make sure I had 2 experienced ARs with me, and he only gave me that game because I had almost 2 years of youth experience by this point, and 15 OA lines. Even then, I found it difficult to manage, as it was 2 feisty sides, a player was sent off for VC after about 60/70 mins, 2 others were very lucky not to get 2YC and it finished 3-2, with the winning goal being quite late in the game iirc.

For some leagues this isn't possible, but I honestly believe under no circumstances should newly qualified officials (particularly younger ones) be finding games on their own/on these apps, and nor should they be anywhere near games like this one without experience first.

I do think some experience should be mandatory before you can do OA games, but the shortage of referees in England is a huge barrier to that ever happening.
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And another one less now.
 
Gabriel said:
I have no idea why anyone would start with a potentially unaffiliated OA game as others have said. When I did my first OA game, my appointments officer admitted it wasn't the easiest game I could have been given, but what he did do was make sure I had 2 experienced ARs with me, and he only gave me that game because I had almost 2 years of youth experience by this point, and 15 OA lines. Even then, I found it difficult to manage, as it was 2 feisty sides, a player was sent off for VC after about 60/70 mins, 2 others were very lucky not to get 2YC and it finished 3-2, with the winning goal being quite late in the game iirc.

For some leagues this isn't possible, but I honestly believe under no circumstances should newly qualified officials (particularly younger ones) be finding games on their own/on these apps, and nor should they be anywhere near games like this one without experience first.

I do think some experience should be mandatory before you can do OA games, but the shortage of referees in England is a huge barrier to that ever happening.
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Naivety? Over confidence? Maybe just not knowing what he was letting himself in for?

Guidance during the course would be ideal but not really what it's there for I guess, its where a mentor really should help
 
es1 said:
Naivety? Over confidence? Maybe just not knowing what he was letting himself in for?

Guidance during the course would be ideal but not really what it's there for I guess, its where a mentor really should help
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I agree that all of those are possibilities, but I do really think that finding games through apps that aren't actually organised by an appt officer/CFA shouldn't be allowed, as it is probably in those games that are allocated this way that have the biggest issues.
 
Gabriel said:
I agree that all of those are possibilities, but I do really think that finding games through apps that aren't actually organised by an appt officer/CFA shouldn't be allowed, as it is probably in those games that are allocated this way that have the biggest issues.
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Sure, but them the games will (in the vast majority of cases) simply go without refs, which isn't workable.
L
 
es1 said:
Naivety? Over confidence? Maybe just not knowing what he was letting himself in for?

Guidance during the course would be ideal but not really what it's there for I guess, its where a mentor really should help
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Depends on his guidance as the RDO on my course after chatting with me a bit actually advised me to do higher ages and OA from the start as it would suit me
 
HonestRef said:
Depends on his guidance as the RDO on my course after chatting with me a bit actually advised me to do higher ages and OA from the start as it would suit me
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that's fair enough on an individual level, but wont be the norm.
 
Gabriel said:
I have no idea why anyone would start with a potentially unaffiliated OA game as others have said. When I did my first OA game, my appointments officer admitted it wasn't the easiest game I could have been given, but what he did do was make sure I had 2 experienced ARs with me, and he only gave me that game because I had almost 2 years of youth experience by this point, and 15 OA lines. Even then, I found it difficult to manage, as it was 2 feisty sides, a player was sent off for VC after about 60/70 mins, 2 others were very lucky not to get 2YC and it finished 3-2, with the winning goal being quite late in the game iirc.

For some leagues this isn't possible, but I honestly believe under no circumstances should newly qualified officials (particularly younger ones) be finding games on their own/on these apps, and nor should they be anywhere near games like this one without experience first.

I do think some experience should be mandatory before you can do OA games, but the shortage of referees in England is a huge barrier to that ever happening.
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I think, like a lot in preseason, it tends to be a bit of a free for all - I'm new to this county but have joined a few of the local 'Find a ref' groups, and there's been lots of clubs seeking refs over the summer with very little oversight.

That being said, when I first qualified many moons ago, I started with OA football, granted I had a mentor come to a few of the games, but most of us from the course just went straight into it. Bit of a baptism of fire reffing in inner-city Leicester as a new ref!
 
With unfortunate situations like the OP, the support from the RDO can only happen if they are aware of what happened.
I wonder whether this young referee had advised the RDO of the abuse he had received, and whether he had issued any cards when he was abused. The point about random matches being picked up by referees is very valid - many of these feature clubs which are not registered, players who should not be playing, etc.
 
For some further context on those apps - I was sent a list of 13 teams that are currently under safeguarding bans in my CFA last night. 2 of them now have games showing up on those apps…. Coincidence? I highly doubt it. (Yes, this has been reported!)

It is extremely difficult for new referees, and I understand that as I was left without a mentor, and trying to find games on my own. However, I did so by contacting a few leagues, explaining the situation, and waiting to be given the right games. There are ways around it, but I do appreciate that it is hard.
 
As an observer you're more than entitled to write to the local FA and both clubs with your observations - I would
 
es1 said:
that's fair enough on an individual level, but wont be the norm.
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I know but someone said RDO should of advised on his course I was just pointing out my RDO actually advised me to do it so he may well of got similar advice.
 
easytiger said:
As an observer you're more than entitled to write to the local FA and both clubs with your observations - I would
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Yes, quite right, however I did ask the chap but he said not to bother - though thinking about next week's ref it might be worth doing.

Though with behaviour like that, I'm sure the team and player are well known.
 
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