A&H

County Cup

I took up a last minute appointment as R for my first ever County Cup game today, played at a university campus and the pitch was amazing, I actually felt a bit guilty about putting my studs on it!

Made a real change to the ploughed fields I’m used too and the quality of play was excellent by two teams who wanted to play and not kick lumps out of each other, one of those games you come away from thinking reffing is a real pleasure 👍
 
The Referee Store
Did a last minute senor youth county cup line last Thursday and EVERYONE was asking beforehand about the rules - subs, et, pens etc
 
Did a last minute senor youth county cup line last Thursday and EVERYONE was asking beforehand about the rules - subs, et, pens etc

Not surprising, we've had warnings dispatched through society meetings because referees were not applying the right rules. So, I imagine if that issue is a problem over where you're refereeing, some of the teams will double/triple-check!

That bad last season, I heard that apparently one of the referees only filled in the team sheet at half-time. :wall:
 
Not surprising, we've had warnings dispatched through society meetings because referees were not applying the right rules. So, I imagine if that issue is a problem over where you're refereeing, some of the teams will double/triple-check!

That bad last season, I heard that apparently one of the referees only filled in the team sheet at half-time. :wall:

Its not made easy though - this game was the Senior Youth Cup (U18s) - extra time and penalties but the 'normal' Under 18s cup goes straight to pens!:confused: Likewise this was 3 from 5 subs - non rolling, the other U18s cup is 5 from 5 rolling.
 
Its not made easy though - this game was the Senior Youth Cup (U18s) - extra time and penalties but the 'normal' Under 18s cup goes straight to pens!:confused: Likewise this was 3 from 5 subs - non rolling, the other U18s cup is 5 from 5 rolling.

Ask the ref appointments officer to propose a rule change to bring them in line
 
In my county, the Saturday Senior Cup is straight to penalties. The Sunday Senior Cup is extra time and penalties. Why the lower standard game would warrant extra time and the higher standard doesn't I don't know, but it will catch any ref out who doesn't search the competition rules.
 
In my county, the Saturday Senior Cup is straight to penalties. The Sunday Senior Cup is extra time and penalties. Why the lower standard game would warrant extra time and the higher standard doesn't I don't know, but it will catch any ref out who doesn't search the competition rules.
It's not about what the competition 'warrants' it's most likely about what the clubs involved would prefer. For Sunday teams, becoming County champions is probably the biggest accolade going. Whereas for the Saturday teams, other competitions (FA Cup, FA Vase, FA Trophy, League promotion etc) may well be seen as more critical, with a more direct financial impact.
 
It's not about what the competition 'warrants' it's most likely about what the clubs involved would prefer. For Sunday teams, becoming County champions is probably the biggest accolade going. Whereas for the Saturday teams, other competitions (FA Cup, FA Vase, FA Trophy, League promotion etc) may well be seen as more critical, with a more direct financial impact.

That's a good point and something I hadn't considered. However, it still seems strange to have County Cup Competitions having different rules regarding match duration. In my playing days (and I won 2 County Cups), both the Saturday and Sunday competitions went to extra time. In fact all cup competitions did. Having all cup games with the same match duration seems sensible to me.
 
That's a good point and something I hadn't considered. However, it still seems strange to have County Cup Competitions having different rules regarding match duration. In my playing days (and I won 2 County Cups), both the Saturday and Sunday competitions went to extra time. In fact all cup competitions did. Having all cup games with the same match duration seems sensible to me.

Straight to extra time is a relatively new thing, probably only in the past 5 years or so. Can kind of understand why, teams in the junior cups will only play on Saturday or Sunday and will generally have a short season as they will be in 10-12 team leagues. Compare that to Teams in Senior cups and they will be playing Saturdays and most midweeks, with as many as 46 league games and at least two cup competitions. So makes sense that they don't want extra time.
 
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