A&H

Bergkamp v Newcastle

J

Jorik0907

Well-Known Member
On rewarching Bergkamp's wonderful goal vs Newcastle, I noticed that the assistants are on the opposite side of what we're used to. Was this still standard practice in the UK in the early 2000s or is there a different reason?
 
The Referee Store
Back in the day the Football League (now called Premier League/Championship/English Football League) had the assistants ("Linesmen" until 1997) on left wings for one half and on right wings for the other half.
Before becoming a referee I remember watching a game at Selhurst Park, where the referee during a 55th minute stoppage in play indicated "cross over" to his assistants because they had taken up the same wing as in the first half.
In the early years of this century The FA followed the lead of FIFA and UEFA in that assistants had to be on the right wing in all games.
No problem at the top level, bad news for ground staff at grassroots grounds!
 
Chris Foy was the most recent Premier League referee to run right backs. FIFA then told the FA / PGMOL that they needed to be consistent and use the traditional patrol path like all other countries and he was forced to change. Guess that would have been about 15 years ago.
 
I’ll quite happily switch if needed and run left wings. Would rather that than have an assistant lose concentration due to not being able to stay on their feet
 
Ross said:
I’ll quite happily switch if needed and run left wings. Would rather that than have an assistant lose concentration due to not being able to stay on their feet
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I've actually done that with the sidelines being wrecked. Took about 5 minutes or so for me to adjust to viewing RB instead of LB but I did it.
 
In the US, I often work high school games. There’s generally a varsity (senior) and junior varsity game. If I’m the referee for the junior game, I will sometimes run a reverse diagonal. First, it helps with field wear and tear-especially since many of our high school fields are also used for other sports. Second, there always seems to be one game a year where I have to run a right because of something that could put my assistants in danger like a long jump pit just a few yards off the field. We don’t have nearly as many of those today with soccer becoming much more popular, but we sometimes deal with this at a smaller school in the country. I run a reverse to make sure I’m comfortable enough for when I must run one.
 
Putting aside the professional level, I’d rather see more use of the reverse diagonal. I use it where there is a problem for an AR on the path. (Awful mud, trees, jump pits, etc.) I’ll also do it certain sum scenarios. One field I used to ref on regularly was horrific for a standard diagonal on early morning games. By flipping the diagonal, no one on the ref team was staring into the sun. Most folks understood and liked it; others looked at me like I had two heads. (Long ago, when reverses seemed more common, someone told me that when shadows are long, the ref should run the same diagonal as the shadows—it really does make sense.)
 
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