I'm now 5 games in to my refereeing, I've done 4 9v9 U12 games for a team I know well, which have generally gone well. Things I picked up early has been to work on my positioning and concentration levels. I volunteered to do an U16 game yesterday as I thought it'd be a different experience from U12 but not too much of a step up. Everything went well at first, thought it better not to mention how new a referee I was and see how I got on.
Not sure what the rest of the country was like but 5 minutes after kicking off in cold sunshine, it started to rain, which turned to sleet blown in by a cold northerly for the rest of the game. Now I'd checked with the manager beforehand that it was 40 minutes each way but for some reason after 30 minutes my brain stopped working in the cold and wet and I blew for half time (U12 games have all been 30 though). One asst manager obviously was aware enough to point out we'd only played 30 so had to drag the players back on to play the rest of the half. Apologised for the mistake and fortunately I'd blown up just as the ball had gone out for a goal kick so there was no drama. Rest of the game went without incident fortunately, but realised that a mistake like that could have made it difficult if it had been tense. Afterwards they all joked that they'd wished they'd only played 30 e/w because of the weather (was asked after 3 minutes of 2nd half how long was left) and they asked if I could do any more games for them so I can't have been that bad.
Not sure what the rest of the country was like but 5 minutes after kicking off in cold sunshine, it started to rain, which turned to sleet blown in by a cold northerly for the rest of the game. Now I'd checked with the manager beforehand that it was 40 minutes each way but for some reason after 30 minutes my brain stopped working in the cold and wet and I blew for half time (U12 games have all been 30 though). One asst manager obviously was aware enough to point out we'd only played 30 so had to drag the players back on to play the rest of the half. Apologised for the mistake and fortunately I'd blown up just as the ball had gone out for a goal kick so there was no drama. Rest of the game went without incident fortunately, but realised that a mistake like that could have made it difficult if it had been tense. Afterwards they all joked that they'd wished they'd only played 30 e/w because of the weather (was asked after 3 minutes of 2nd half how long was left) and they asked if I could do any more games for them so I can't have been that bad.
