Coping with getting it wrong

[Ben448844]

Mistakes (even obvious ones) happen to us all. We are human as is everyone else involved in the game. My metric of success is how many games in a season am I dropping major errors. If its going down then im improving. I'm having a season where everything seems to be going right, I'm in control, confident and as a result its been very simplistic and steady this season. No real big incidents at all and no major errors I don't believe. It's a good period.

But I'm an experienced chap on the field. I know the next bad games are only ever a whistle away. I'll try and learn from errors week to week and pick up infor from others on the pitch an online and at the end of the season I'll decide if and where I've improved or gone backwards and what I've done to get there.

My advice is to always go for a drink with the teams after the game. If you've messed up then you can talk about it (obviously you've got to be savy about what you say). Keep the personal touch with people. I dont want people seeing me as "ref". Some bloke who's there for 90 mins and then goes home. It's too easy to build false opinions of me if you don't get to know me. They can see me as a normal bloke who likes to have a drink after the game and talk football. Someone who explains things. Some people are just too wrapped up to want to but in almost every game I do I'm speaking to people in the bar after the game. I think its more important that is recognised

 

[OIREF!]

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

I'd take the extra time just for the feeling of making a 'controversial' decision in the smug knowledge that I was 100% right!

 

[Mugsey]

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.

In fairness to myself James I was commiserating with someone about their mistake, I am fully aware that I had dropped a clanger.

 

[RefIADad]

I once worked for a really bad boss. He was your classic old school bully - swearing, intimidation, always felt he was right. He would have fit right in with many of the coaches we see! His only advice that I ever took away from him was this line: "I can't fix yesterday."

Same applies here. You can't go back and fix a game or a call that didn't go well. You can take the lessons from it, but you can't go back. We've all had a match or matches where we've missed a penalty, sent some off when we shouldn't have (or vice versa), had a mass confrontation, etc. You can only take the experience and apply it to your future matches.

In other words, don't beat yourself up over it. Even the top referees like Felix Brych, Michael Oliver, etc. have rough games. If the top guys have matches they'd like to have back, us regular Joes will have them as well.