pre-game

Hey everyone hope your well. I am a trainee referee and I have a couple of questions. 1. When you get an email from a club confirming the match, are there any questions that you ask and do you keep the email short. 2. What do you say to the mangers when you meet them for the first time. 3...

Hi guys I’ve been reffing Sunday league for over a year now and still finding pre match talks to managers pretty awkward. All I do is collect team sheets and ask for linesman to be volunteered. Is there anything important I need to do as well and how do I make it less awkward?

Twenty-yards from the white line, Gallin snorts a shot of invigorating wintry-fresh air, reviving and stiffening his whole face and covering the walls of his lungs like a frost. He exhales rapidly through pursed lips. His stride becomes more deliberate, injected with a pronounced machismo; long...

Meeting a team manager for the first time was always... interesting. Gallin, over the years, had created his own loose typology based on his encounters. Managers ranged from Perfect Professionals right through to Obstructive Pigs. Gallin’s most loathed manager, however, just had to be the...

Gallin gently forces open the heavy, ill-fitting door to the referees’ changing block to be immediately hit by the familiar pong of well-ripened muck, damp leather, ammonia, Ralgex and various indefinable but nonetheless appreciable scents of the body. It is a combination of smells you just...

A rectangular, brown road sign for Old Leaf Playing Fields looms large at the roadside. Gallin vigilantly pulls the car to the left, presses softly on the brake peddle and indicates to turn into the car park. The butterflies, which have occupied his stomach since the moment he woke, begin to...

Gallin holds a misted glass to his face, quaffing the last few mouthfuls of chilled water, all the while his eyes point upwards, fixed on the outsized, old-worldly clock hanging high above the kitchen door. Its large hand clunks gracelessly down to mark 12.27pm. Gallin places the glass down on...