A&H

Junior/Youth Club Assistant Referees

HenryW139

New Member
Had an U13s game today and gave a penalty towards the end after a player rounded the goalkeeper and went down. I was to the keeper’s left (in keeping with the advice I got on the refereeing course) and the player went to my right around the keeper, meaning my viewing angle was obscured by the him as he made the challenge. I thought I saw contact but the club AR who had a perfect angle on the incident was adamant there was none (I was pretty sure he was right and quite quickly regretted my decision). Despite this, I felt that I couldn’t overrule my decision due to his biased disposition and to avoid looking weak. But I knowingly did this almost certainly at the expense of getting the correct decision. My question is, should I take the advice of club ARs if they have a perfect view and I do not? (And how can I improve my positioning in these situations to avoid making poor mistakes like these?) Thanks.
 
The Referee Store
Question 1. No. Club ARs give out of play and direction and in some counties offside. I'd maaaaybe take the advice if it was a detriment to 'his/her team'.
Question 2. The best position is one from which you can make the correct decision. Which can often mean deviating from the perfect diagonol or lazy s that's taught. In this case, if you recognise the player going the other way, then you need to deviate from that positional guidance and shift over to get the viewing angle you need and not rely on AR, club or neutral.
 
You really need to be covering this off when you brief the CARs before the game. Tell them you want ball in and out of play, and offside if it is allowed in your region, but ask them to leave everything else, including fouls, to you.

There's no right and wrong answer for the positioning, other than that the key thing is to not be directly in line with the challenge. An angled view will always give you the best chance of seeing contact, but if the keeper puts himself between you and the ball there's not a lot you can do
 
You can change your decision because you are pretty sure you have made a mistake not because you are taking the advice of club AR.

If you independently thought you made a mistake, regardless of what club AR told you, then the right thing to do is to reverse your decision. To keep match control, communicate this well with the attacking captain. If the bench want an explanation ask them to talk to the captain later as you have already explained it to him.

If the only reason you think you made a mistake is what the club AR told you, stick with your decision.
 
Question 1. No. Club ARs give out of play and direction and in some counties offside. I'd maaaaybe take the advice if it was a detriment to 'his/her team'.
Question 2. The best position is one from which you can make the correct decision. Which can often mean deviating from the perfect diagonol or lazy s that's taught. In this case, if you recognise the player going the other way, then you need to deviate from that positional guidance and shift over to get the viewing angle you need and not rely on AR, club or neutral.
Thanks for all the responses. I think that it’s probably worth making it much clearer to the CARs that they don’t need to get involved in fouls at all (usually I say only flag up if the play is angled right towards you, which it was to be fair, but I’ll change that from now on). Clearly I also shouldn’t stick too rigidly to the positioning guidelines for specific instances like that, especially if I know I’ll likely ignore the guidance of the CAR on credibility grounds.


You can change your decision because you are pretty sure you have made a mistake not because you are taking the advice of club AR.

If you independently thought you made a mistake, regardless of what club AR told you, then the right thing to do is to reverse your decision. To keep match control, communicate this well with the attacking captain. If the bench want an explanation ask them to talk to the captain later as you have already explained it to him.

If the only reason you think you made a mistake is what the club AR told you, stick with your decision.
Again, thanks for the response. I do think the AR was being honest when he said there was no contact, and he had a perfect view. I think most of my self-doubt came from the AR, and all the parents (including the attacker’s own mother 😂) saying it wasn’t a penalty but once all of these clearly biased, if likely correct, people had tried to influence me to change my decision, I felt I could not change my decision without looking really weak.
 
Easy pre match to club assistants.

This is what seems to work for me.

Ball in and out of play - stick the flag up, keep the flag up. I'll look over, you'll shout me, someone will shout me. We stop play for it as its something you can't play advantage on (I'm not sure if some car's don't quite understand that).

Offsides - a later flag is better so wait till they touch the ball or get very close, unless it's a 1 on 1 then earlier flag to prevent a collision with the keeper. I don't expect car's to understand the offside law like we're meant to so keep it nice and simple.

I'll do fouls so don't worry about them, and I might overrule you, I do trust you and don't think you're a cheat, (it just might be that we have different angles - this is a good way of covering things if you do think they might be a little biased) so if needed I'll pip the whistle and we'll go with me. If it's a throw in etc decision close to you then I'll try and give it to you.



I've not had any complaints yet, and my recent appointments mean I must be doing something right (I do 100% of my youth and adult league games with car's, and lines in another adult league i do).

It's very rare I do a game with neutral assistants.

I hope that talk up there helps, it's pretty much as I say it in person.
 
There's no right and wrong answer for the positioning, other than that the key thing is to not be directly in line with the challenge. An angled view will always give you the best chance of seeing contact, but if the keeper puts himself between you and the ball there's not a lot you can do

@HenryW139 Take the above advice to heart. We generally stay left, as that keeps play between us and the AR (on a standard diagonal). But the most important thin as plays develop is to find a good angle on the play that is going to happen. The best angle is generally where you can see the space between the players, as that’s where bad things happen. But don’t sweat it--the way you find those angles and how to move where they are is by experienc. Run this play back I. Your head ans ask yourself where you could have moved differently and had a better angle; don’t beat yourself up over it, just file it away for another day.
 
The only time I took advice from a CAR was during an U11s game. It had been a bit of a feisty one, especially between the home teams big CB and the away teams big Striker, but nothing too bad.

Anyway, the striker tried to go for a dribble but the centre back did a great standing challenge and took the ball off him. He smashed the ball up field and I looked away to see that the person he’d played it to was offside, so I blew for that.

I heard the CB let off a little Yelp of pain and when I turned around he was on the floor and saying that the striker had stamped on his foot. Playing the incident back in my head, I realised that the striker had gone in for a late challenge with no intent of getting the ball and that if I’d just turned around I’d have seen the stamp.

So I knew in my head it had happened but I hadn’t seen it. The CAR asked to speak to me, and he was a representative of the away team. He admitted though that the striker had stamped on the CB, so seeing as even the away team parent was calling for it, I booked the away striker (only time I have done that at U11)

After the match I had a word with him and the CAR admitted that the striker was his own kid. So seeing as the CAR cost himself £10 that day, I appreciated the honesty. It just helped me make the right decision.

But for your case, it’s probably a no. Just go with your gut instinct
 
Back
Top