Coping with getting it wrong

[OnlyUseMeWhistle]

Besides a stiff upper lip, what are you tips for dealing with getting a decision wrong?

On Sunday I gave a goal after a penalty taker hit the bar and then nodded it in with no other player touching the ball.

Obviously should've been IDFK (or probably a retake for encroachment) but I gave the goal, I'd forgotten the rule.

Only my third game so totally forgivable but it ate me up for the rest of the day...

 

[JamesL]

Frame it positively.
You now know. You won't ever make that mistake again.
Well done for self evaluating.

 

[Kes]

Besides a stiff upper lip, what are you tips for dealing with getting a decision wrong?

On Sunday I gave a goal after a penalty taker hit the bar and then nodded it in with no other player touching the ball.

Obviously should've been IDFK (or probably a retake for encroachment) but I gave the goal, I'd forgotten the rule.

Only my third game so totally forgivable but it ate me up for the rest of the day...

Chin up mate. It's likely to be the first and now only time you ever make that mistake.

Did the players accept the decision? Or was anybody on the day insisting you were wrong to allow the goal?

 

[es1]

SUMO

Shut
Up
Move
On

mistakes happen in every game (well they do in mine anyway). it's really important to be self critical / self analyse but make sure you do this after, like you are doing. recognise what you did, why it went wrong and what you might do differently next time. i guarentee you wont make that mistake again!

 

[OnlyUseMeWhistle]

Chin up mate. It's likely to be the first and now only time you ever make that mistake.

Did the players accept the decision? Or was anybody on the day insisting you were wrong to allow the goal?

Couple of players said "he can't do that", whilst the other team said the rule had changed.

Felt I could only go off what I knew and that I'd awarded the goal so it stood. Definitely won't happen again!

 

[socal lurker]

Keep in mind that even in professional games whistled by those guys with the funny white badges, they still make mistakes. Our realistic goal as referees is not to never make a mistake, but to make fewer in the future than we did in the past. This isn't easy.

A wise man learns from his mistakes; a really wise man learns from the mistakes of others. You will have to learn from your mistakes--if you pay attention here, you will see that even some of the most experienced refs will post about a mistake they made recently and are learning from. Hang around here, and you can learn from other's mistakes so you don't have to make all of them yourself.

 

[Mugsey]

I gave a penalty one time without following the ball after the attacking player had been brought down. The ball had dribbled over the line after I had blown and pointed to the spot. The attacking team manager asked, in a calm voice, 'can't we have the goal ref?' I realised what I had done so said yup, a goal. A member of the defending team heard the conversation so kicked off off 'you can't do that ref, you'd stopped the game.' etc. I gave the goal in the end but the game was rubbish after that. Niggly and the team I'd given the goal against chunnering until the final whistle. You live and learn.

 

[markref]

It happens. we had a local cup final where this happened a few years ago. The only people who realised were the 15 - 20 refs standing on the sidelines who spotted it and gave the ref (level 6) quite a lot of stick afterwards! This is one of those times where you need to forget about it and move on because otherwise you'll make worse mistakes while you're beating yourself up.

Well done for realising. You won't do that one again.

 

[Mugsey]

Couple of players said "he can't do that", whilst the other team said the rule had changed.

Felt I could only go off what I knew and that I'd awarded the goal so it stood. Definitely won't happen again!

Just so you know, you can change your decision up until the game is restarted. So in thios case if the team hadn't kicked off from the centre again you could have changed your decision. Bit of a difficult sell that one though!

 

[Mugsey]

We all make mistakes but sometimes we get caught up in other people's mistakes. One time I was assisting at a ten year celebration of the creation of a women's football team. Although it was supposed to be a friendly it was really high stakes. The opposition was Spurs! The crowd was about 250 people. I was assisting and the middle was a level 5 ref so I assumed he knew what he was doing. At one point a player was brought in the area whilst she had a good chance of scoring. I was 50 yards away but the ref was right in front of the foul. I didn't put my flag up because I reasoned that there was nothing I could add from 50 yards that he coulodn't see a couple of yards in front of him. I stared straight at his face waiting to put the flag up if he gave me a raised eyebrow or whatever.

Anyway total mayhem with me getting the blame. Screaming and shouting 'Are you blind lino?' Anyway, it settled down after a bit and during a break in play whilst te physio looked at an injured player the ref came over and whispered to me 'was that a penalty? I had switched off for a minute.'

 

[Kes]

Couple of players said "he can't do that", whilst the other team said the rule had changed.

Felt I could only go off what I knew and that I'd awarded the goal so it stood. Definitely won't happen again!

Did the same thing myself in about my 4th ever match. Keeper got close to it but the ball came back down off the bar and was promptly hammered into the net by the penalty taker. My brain went blank for a few seconds and I awarded the goal!!

One or two defending players came up to me on the way back to the centre mark for the kick-off, querying my decision (quite rightly) by which time I'd recovered my brain and was able to respond with "Yes guys, but in my opinion your goalkeeper got the slightest of touches to it first".

They disagreed obviously but my quick thinking helped to stop me looking a bigger pratt than I was already feeling inside.

 

[GraemeS]

Same here - fortunately, when this happened to me the attacker managed to head the penalty rebound over the bar.

As we were setting up for the GK, a defender jogged past me and went "it wouldn't have counted if he put that in would it ref?" As with Kes, I realised what he was getting at and managed to style it out and say "yeah, but since there's not much difference between the GK and a FK on the edge of the 6 yard box, not worth making a fuss over" - in reality, I hadn't realised at all until I was asked!

 

[JamesL]

I gave a penalty one time without following the ball after the attacking player had been brought down. The ball had dribbled over the line after I had blown and pointed to the spot. The attacking team manager asked, in a calm voice, 'can't we have the goal ref?' I realised what I had done so said yup, a goal. A member of the defending team heard the conversation so kicked off off 'you can't do that ref, you'd stopped the game.' etc. I gave the goal in the end but the game was rubbish after that. Niggly and the team I'd given the goal against chunnering until the final whistle. You live and learn.

Back in the day, you could have offered (and I say this tongue in cheek) the offending player a choice. Red card and pen, or goal.
Truthfully, you can't really award the goal if you've already blown as play stopped before the ball went out of play.

 

[JamesL]

Same here - fortunately, when this happened to me the attacker managed to head the penalty rebound over the bar.

As we were setting up for the GK, a defender jogged past me and went "it wouldn't have counted if he put that in would it ref?" As with Kes, I realised what he was getting at and managed to style it out and say "yeah, but since there's not much difference between the GK and a FK on the edge of the 6 yard box, not worth making a fuss over" - in reality, I hadn't realised at all until I was asked!

Big difference between the restarts actually as attacker cant be offside from a GK whereas they can from an idfk if you wanted to sugarcoat your styling out

 

[GraemeS]

Big difference between the restarts actually as attacker cant be offside from a GK whereas they can from an idfk if you wanted to sugarcoat your styling out

I'll accept that as a small difference given how rarely it actually affect anything

 

[OIREF!]

On Sunday I gave a goal after a penalty taker hit the bar and then nodded it in with no other player touching the ball.

I waited 17 years for this scenario to occur. Players from both sides were surprised when I disallowed the goal but at 4-0 with less than 10 minutes to play there were no arguments. How I wish it could have happened at 0-0 in the last minute of a cup final!!

 

[socal lurker]

I've seen the mirror image of this call missed, too. GK saves and PK taker kicks it in. Goal disallowed because the ref remembered from class about the kicker not being able to play a rebound , but didn't quite remember it right.

 

[JamesL]

I waited 17 years for this scenario to occur. Players from both sides were surprised when I disallowed the goal but at 4-0 with less than 10 minutes to play there were no arguments. How I wish it could have happened at 0-0 in the last minute of a cup final!!

What and have to go to extra time. No chance!!!

 

[santa sangria]

Besides a stiff upper lip, what are you tips for dealing with getting a decision wrong?

On Sunday I gave a goal after a penalty taker hit the bar and then nodded it in with no other player touching the ball.

Obviously should've been IDFK (or probably a retake for encroachment) but I gave the goal, I'd forgotten the rule.

Only my third game so totally forgivable but it ate me up for the rest of the day...

Well, I can help you here… I gave a goal when a player scored a pen rebound off the post, in my 4th season, in promotion assessment, with my RDO and sensei assessing. I was so nervous. And it cost me a year.

So to do it in game three you are light years ahead. And to be able to process it - you will be fine. Do more games and run the line for better refs and learn from them - then, when you’ve got headsets on and your ref is about to give a pen rebound goal, you can fix it!

 

[Justylove]

Best thing to remember, 1 bad decision or even game doesn't make you a bad referee, likewise a good decision or game doesn't make you a good referee.

Acknowledge the error, log it in the memory banks and move on.

Guarantee you won't do it again!