county cups - distance
- Thread starter Kent Ref
- Start date
ladbroke8745
RefChat Addict
I remember being appointed to a game in Bletchley, when I was part of Berks and Bucks. Sunday morning game 1030 kick off.
The county had on their records I don't drive (at the time). First train would have got me there after 1pm that day. And the cost of the train fare was more than the match fee too.
Wrote email to appointing officer, with screenshots of times of trains and costing, and said although I don't necessarily do it for the money, I don't do it at a loss either.
Soon got changed to a more local game.
Where I am now, we changed in recent years to a flat fee (£50) compared to fees dependent on age groups and then mileage added on that was something like >10 free then x amount after that.
The problem I'm seeing now is that although £50 is a very good fee, the youth league I am on has teams split by about 80 miles east to west. From my town I can have many games where it's about 15 minutes drive either direction, but lately I keep seeing emails about games needing covered in the far placed towns, just 1 most of the time, and, considering I get £49 travel expenses for work in relation to this same distance when I need to travel there, this would mean I get £1 if I used that same formula. Again, not necessarily doing it for the money but if it's going to take 1.5 hours there, 1.5 hours back, and potentially 1.5 hours game time, and a further 30 minutes for pre match and half time that's 5 hours out of my day (and with lunch time kick offs) that's more or less my whole day gone.
Not saying we shouldn't have these teams in the league but if it's last minute appointments they (league or county) should probably incentivise the games.
I'd probably cover a longer distance game if it was my worthwhile.
I remember going to one of these two far post locations in my early days in this league (when we got travel expenses before the change) and the first game was called off before I got there as the club wasn't sure who was refereeing and called the away team, who were nearly there (having travelled nearly an hour by this point), to say it's off for lack of referee.
Yet they made no attempt to get in touch with me. I spoke with the 2nd game I had there and asked if they could speak to the first game manager couple days before and got nowhere. Tried with the league too, and got nowhere.
So I left really early too to get there and ended up having to wait over 2 hours for my next fixture in a small village that had literally nothing to get even lunch from.
Since then, I have turned these appointments down.
The county had on their records I don't drive (at the time). First train would have got me there after 1pm that day. And the cost of the train fare was more than the match fee too.
Wrote email to appointing officer, with screenshots of times of trains and costing, and said although I don't necessarily do it for the money, I don't do it at a loss either.
Soon got changed to a more local game.
Where I am now, we changed in recent years to a flat fee (£50) compared to fees dependent on age groups and then mileage added on that was something like >10 free then x amount after that.
The problem I'm seeing now is that although £50 is a very good fee, the youth league I am on has teams split by about 80 miles east to west. From my town I can have many games where it's about 15 minutes drive either direction, but lately I keep seeing emails about games needing covered in the far placed towns, just 1 most of the time, and, considering I get £49 travel expenses for work in relation to this same distance when I need to travel there, this would mean I get £1 if I used that same formula. Again, not necessarily doing it for the money but if it's going to take 1.5 hours there, 1.5 hours back, and potentially 1.5 hours game time, and a further 30 minutes for pre match and half time that's 5 hours out of my day (and with lunch time kick offs) that's more or less my whole day gone.
Not saying we shouldn't have these teams in the league but if it's last minute appointments they (league or county) should probably incentivise the games.
I'd probably cover a longer distance game if it was my worthwhile.
I remember going to one of these two far post locations in my early days in this league (when we got travel expenses before the change) and the first game was called off before I got there as the club wasn't sure who was refereeing and called the away team, who were nearly there (having travelled nearly an hour by this point), to say it's off for lack of referee.
Yet they made no attempt to get in touch with me. I spoke with the 2nd game I had there and asked if they could speak to the first game manager couple days before and got nowhere. Tried with the league too, and got nowhere.
So I left really early too to get there and ended up having to wait over 2 hours for my next fixture in a small village that had literally nothing to get even lunch from.
Since then, I have turned these appointments down.
For me and I’m sure others, it’s travel time more than money that decides it. I have a toddler and there’s just no way my wife is going to be fine with me sodding off for 5/6 hours at this time of our lives. Thankfully I’ve found a few local teams to tide me over for the moment and have an understanding with some very decent ref secs
Same boat as you here, unless it's a WNL game that pays £85+ I cannot justify it to the wife and baby