The Ref Stop

club/league marks

richard ramjane

richard ramjane

RefChat Addict
just got a letter from the main league i'm on... OA sundays, saying thanks for the season etc and club marks 86.5, league marks 81.35.... silly question, obviously i know how club marks are derived, but ... how would i have obtained league marks, if that is what it means, as no one , as far as i am aware, has seen me in action ?
 
The Ref Stop
Guessing that would mean that your personal average club marks were 86.5 vs an overall league average for club marks for ALL referees of 81.35. In which case, top job :)
 
richard ramjane said:
just got a letter from the main league i'm on... OA sundays, saying thanks for the season etc and club marks 86.5, league marks 81.35.... silly question, obviously i know how club marks are derived, but ... how would i have obtained league marks, if that is what it means, as no one , as far as i am aware, has seen me in action ?
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Why don't you ask the league as they sent them to you?
 
richard ramjane said:
yes, will do ... first time i've seen anything of that nature, just wondered if anyone knew what the relevance of the second number was ... whether it was marks from the league or as @Russell Jones suggests its the average, which hadnt occurred to me... in fact i'm going to phone the fella now
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Yeah, whenever I've been given my club marks, I've had them alongside the league average - worth asking, but I'd guess that's the answer.
 
GraemeS said:
Yeah, whenever I've been given my club marks, I've had them alongside the league average - worth asking, but I'd guess that's the answer.
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just called him and yup, thats exactly what it is... my mark versus the average of the league... haha tickled me as we decided that i'll have to work on getting that mark down next season... i'm not upsetting enough people ! :)
 
I've never received any sort of end of season avg from either of the leagues I operate on, not that I'd take much notice of them if I did.
 
Padfoot said:
Club marks are largely meaningless.....especially the further down the pyramid you go.....

Just encourages refs to selectively apply the LOTG......
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Not to Referee's Secretaries they aren't. More often than not club marks are the only way the RefSec has of judging the ability of the league referees. Using myself as an example I have almost 90 referees, how would you suggest I gauge their ability without using club marks, after all it isn't as if I can go out and watch them referee? I need to know who the best referees are to appoint to grudge games / top of table games / cup finals, etc. And it is about to get a whole lot harder as RefSecs won't have the fact that a referee is level 5, 6 or 7 to help him out, so club marks will be the only indicator.

A good RefsSec will know how to interpret club marks. They aren't going to suddenly stop using a referee on big games because one club (who lost) gave him a very low mark. But equally if a referee is consistently getting marks under 70 that is a pretty good indicator that he isn't as good as someone who is constantly getting marks of 80 and above. Also if clubs mark below 61 they have to send in a written report justifying it, and if the same referee is getting low marks with the same justification it is fair to say that multiple clubs aren't likely to be wrong (the usual cause here is fitness and proximity to decisions)

Also you can protect your club marks without selectively applying the LOTG, some of the things below will help improve your marks ...

- Respond to the club's confirmation promptly, club secs get infuriated when they have to chase referees up, it is just rude.
- Turn up on time, and if you are running late let someone at the club know. Used to drive me round the bend when I was a manager and rather than doing the warm up and team talk I was trying to get hold of the referee who hadn't shown up.
- Look the part - you risk clubs marking you down if you turn up in kit caked in mid from the previous game, or jog around the pitch with your socks rolled down, etc
- Actually do some running. The biggest category of referee complaints I get is he stood in the centre circle and was miles from decisions.
- Explain decisions after the game. You might still agree to disagree with the manager, but it infuriates clubs when referees refuse to talk to them and that will affect the club mark. Whereas if you say "I gave it because from my angle he clipped his angle", etc, they might see you as being human and it being a genuine mistake.

Club marks are here to stay, referees just need to make sure they don't do anything silly to reduce them whilst still doing what is required on the pitch. I don't actually buy the argument that selectively applying the LOTG increases your club marks, and it can actually reduce them. Some of my stricter and card happy referees get the higher marks, and when I went from 4-3 I had 13 red cards in 15 games over the season yet finished in band A for club marks.
 
RustyRef said:
Not to Referee's Secretaries they aren't. More often than not club marks are the only way the RefSec has of judging the ability of the league referees. Using myself as an example I have almost 90 referees, how would you suggest I gauge their ability without using club marks, after all it isn't as if I can go out and watch them referee? I need to know who the best referees are to appoint to grudge games / top of table games / cup finals, etc. And it is about to get a whole lot harder as RefSecs won't have the fact that a referee is level 5, 6 or 7 to help him out, so club marks will be the only indicator.

A good RefsSec will know how to interpret club marks. They aren't going to suddenly stop using a referee on big games because one club (who lost) gave him a very low mark. But equally if a referee is consistently getting marks under 70 that is a pretty good indicator that he isn't as good as someone who is constantly getting marks of 80 and above. Also if clubs mark below 61 they have to send in a written report justifying it, and if the same referee is getting low marks with the same justification it is fair to say that multiple clubs aren't likely to be wrong (the usual cause here is fitness and proximity to decisions)

Also you can protect your club marks without selectively applying the LOTG, some of the things below will help improve your marks ...

- Respond to the club's confirmation promptly, club secs get infuriated when they have to chase referees up, it is just rude.
- Turn up on time, and if you are running late let someone at the club know. Used to drive me round the bend when I was a manager and rather than doing the warm up and team talk I was trying to get hold of the referee who hadn't shown up.
- Look the part - you risk clubs marking you down if you turn up in kit caked in mid from the previous game, or jog around the pitch with your socks rolled down, etc
- Actually do some running. The biggest category of referee complaints I get is he stood in the centre circle and was miles from decisions.
- Explain decisions after the game. You might still agree to disagree with the manager, but it infuriates clubs when referees refuse to talk to them and that will affect the club mark. Whereas if you say "I gave it because from my angle he clipped his angle", etc, they might see you as being human and it being a genuine mistake.

Club marks are here to stay, referees just need to make sure they don't do anything silly to reduce them whilst still doing what is required on the pitch. I don't actually buy the argument that selectively applying the LOTG increases your club marks, and it can actually reduce them. Some of my stricter and card happy referees get the higher marks, and when I went from 4-3 I had 13 red cards in 15 games over the season yet finished in band A for club marks.
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Blah, blah, blah...mind you don't stub your toe on that party line!

Been doing this far too long to believe that club marks are a ridiculously easily manipulated method of arbitrarily marking a referee.

They obviously don't work, judging by some of the abysmal refereeing that can be witnessed at league finals.......by, funnily enough, referees that considered 'popular' with many clubs (normally the ones with poor disciplinary records)....
 
Padfoot said:
Blah, blah, blah...mind you don't stub your toe on that party line!

Been doing this far too long to believe that club marks are a ridiculously easily manipulated method of arbitrarily marking a referee.

They obviously don't work, judging by some of the abysmal refereeing that can be witnessed at league finals.......by, funnily enough, referees that considered 'popular' with many clubs (normally the ones with poor disciplinary records)....
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You haven't answered my question though. If club marks aren't relevant how are RefsSecs supposed to know who the better and worse referees operating on their leagues are?

Nothing to do with party line as I'm coming at this with many hats on. Former player, coach, club secretary, RefsSec, I've seen this from many different angles and I can't see any alternatives to club marks.
 
And from a slightly different perspective, what is the alternative, to help the referee develop?

Bare with me for a moment. As a teacher, I know that the pupil doing the work (practicing skills etc.) is one of the most important they do to improve. But I also know that they are more likely to improve if they have effective feedback, i.e. are told what they did well, what they didn't do well etc.

And that's one of the biggest barriers I have as a ref, trying to improve my game. At my level, I'm unlikely to have any assesor watch me so all I have to go on is my own gut feeling as to how the game went and any feedback from players and managers. It's not an ideal system, but at least clubmarks give some quantifiable feedback, which must be better than nothing?
 
At grassroots level, most teams are incapable of marking a referee fairly....one decision they don't agree with will see you marked in the low 60s.....few will ever mark below the level that requires a report.....because they don't have the knowledge to be able to explain why they have given such a low mark.....they'll just give you 61 and carry on believing they are right.....

For youth leagues it's even worse....as many teams will have the mark filled in before you even kick off.....
 
Padfoot said:
At grassroots level, most teams are incapable of marking a referee fairly....one decision they don't agree with will see you marked in the low 60s.....few will ever mark below the level that requires a report.....because they don't have the knowledge to be able to explain why they have given such a low mark.....they'll just give you 61 and carry on believing they are right.....

For youth leagues it's even worse....as many teams will have the mark filled in before you even kick off.....
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Wow. In one fell swoop you perpetuate the 'club officials and players are ignorant' myth and belittle the only (currently) workable system for gauging the abilities of grassroots referees up and down the country :facepalm:. It's obviously far from perfect but I think @RustyRef perfectly summarises the positive perspective.

Worth saying, it's also a numbers game. If you only do a handful of matches in a season (say, the 8 detailed on your profile) statistically it's far more likely that your club marks will be a poor indicator. If, however. you do a full season of 30+ matches then any 'rogue' marking by some clubs is able to be outweighed by the many 'correct' marks. At the end of the day, your absolute scores are irrelevant but your average versus the league 'norm' is IMO, a decent gauge of your ability to strike a healthy balance between firmly applying the LOTG AND maintaining an empathy for the game and its players. And for anyone hoping to progress, better get used to it as striking this balance is exactly what is required of L4s to progress, needing to please both assessors and clubs alike ....
 
Any useful comparison is only relevant when considered against the type of the teams, league and referees involved.

Where you have a league with a high number of poorly disciplined teams, the referees getting the good club marks are likely to be those who are not applying the LOTG correctly whereas those referees who do the job properly are likely to upset the teams and get a correspondingly low club mark.

Any system which is used to make judgments on someone's performance, must be robust and transparent. Club marks are neither.
Teams are not made to justify their reasons for marking below standard, unless they drop below a set point......if the mark isn't 70-75 teams should be made to justify why it isn't and that equally applies to anything above that line.
This, for me, would be the simplest change that would have the biggest benefit....it would stop the vindictive or ignorance based low scores because a judgement would be able to be made as to whether the low, or high, mark was valid. It would also enable prompt feedback to be given to the ref....

Nor is it particularly transparent....many leagues don't reveal to referees what their club marks are.
Also, it's easily manipulated.....every refs sec knows the teams that always score well so it would be simple to stick a particular ref on a few of their games to bump up their average to secure a final appointment......and it does happen.
Just the same as you see certain promotion seeking refs kept away from 'problem' teams over the course of a season......
 
RefJef said:
And from a slightly different perspective, what is the alternative, to help the referee develop?

Bare with me for a moment. As a teacher, I know that the pupil doing the work (practicing skills etc.) is one of the most important they do to improve. But I also know that they are more likely to improve if they have effective feedback, i.e. are told what they did well, what they didn't do well etc.

And that's one of the biggest barriers I have as a ref, trying to improve my game. At my level, I'm unlikely to have any assesor watch me so all I have to go on is my own gut feeling as to how the game went and any feedback from players and managers. It's not an ideal system, but at least clubmarks give some quantifiable feedback, which must be better than nothing?
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Don't worry Jeff. Once you've re-qualified so to speak, I'll come and watch you. I'll tell you if you were rubbish or not. ;) :D
 
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