A&H

First ever Mass Confrontation

H

HullRef

RefChat Addict
I had a game on Tuesday night. Two U16 teams in the top division, 1 with not much to play for because they are about middle of the table (red team) and the other who are second from bottom fighting to stay up (blue).

The game was going fine with nothing too exciting, some players claiming for everything and the red team were trying to pressure me into making decisions by their persistent shouting, from both players and parents but nothing untoward.

Then in the 78th minute (2 minutes before full time), a red player is attacking down the wing in front of the spectators and gets brought down recklessly by the blue captain and they both go to ground. I am about 10 yards away at this point. I give a fairly loud blow on the whistle and jog towards the two players. As they both get up the blue player who made the tackle puts his hands onto the neck of the red player and throws him to the ground. Now I sprint to the scene with a loud whistle again.

The blue player then walks towards his own goal as if nothing happens. Then the red player gets up runs after him punches him in the side of his face from behind. Cue all players and managers running to the scene where the 2 players are both throwing punches. After a while they are separated and all the other players seem dormant then I look to my right to see blue #3 throwing a barrage of punches to red 6, who is trying to defend himself.

These two then go to ground with blue 3 on top, he keeps on punching to both the head and stomach of red 6 who has done nothing. It took 3 men to pull him off. After this I separate both teams with about a 30m gap then call over the first 2 players and send them off for VC. Then the Blue 3 also for VC. I finished the last 2 minutes and then left with 3 VC reports to go in that took me an hour to write.

Funnily enough this was on Tuesday, on the Thursday before I had an RA meeting that was solely based on Mass confrontation so when this came up on Tuesday I felt that I handled it really well and I got most of what went on and diffused the situation well.

It was a long and lonely bike ride home :)
 
The Referee Store
Sounds like you did the correct thing. It gets concerning when non-players are on the pitch because then if there's any hint of aggression from a non-player towards a player, particularly at this age, I'd be considering abandonment. Child safety and all that.
I've had this sort of thing happen in U/18, but actually seeing punches thrown on the field is quite rare.

Upon reflection, was there any hint of what could have happened earlier in the match? Always good to reflect upon these incidents, whether there was an earlier boiling point, even one that looked relatively minor. Sometimes there isn't.
 
Sounds like you did really well, especially if it was your first experience of this and out of keeping with the rest of the game. Nice one :).

Only constructive thought from me would be that if the original tackle was truly reckless (and therefore going to be a caution), an even louder whistle and sprinting rather than jogging to the scene might have been in order .. and might have encouraged the blue player not to take the law into his own hands.
 
For level 8, you did really well to note all the colours and numbers. Well done.
My very first game I ever refereed, something very similar happened and I was caught like a rabbit in the headlights.
 
CapnBloodbeard said:
Sounds like you did the correct thing. It gets concerning when non-players are on the pitch because then if there's any hint of aggression from a non-player towards a player, particularly at this age, I'd be considering abandonment. Child safety and all that.
I've had this sort of thing happen in U/18, but actually seeing punches thrown on the field is quite rare.

Upon reflection, was there any hint of what could have happened earlier in the match? Always good to reflect upon these incidents, whether there was an earlier boiling point, even one that looked relatively minor. Sometimes there isn't.
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Looking back on the game I don't think there was much that suggested this was coming. There were the usual pushes in the back, strong tackles but all of them were fair and there was definitely no violence in the build up.

Russell Jones said:
Sounds like you did really well, especially if it was your first experience of this and out of keeping with the rest of the game. Nice one :).

Only constructive thought from me would be that if the original tackle was truly reckless (and therefore going to be a caution), an even louder whistle and sprinting rather than jogging to the scene might have been in order .. and might have encouraged the blue player not to take the law into his own hands.
Click to expand...
The tackle was a fairly bad one, nothing near worthy of a red card though. The game was going well up to this point so even though the tackle was a yellow I still wouldn't have sprinted to get there I don't think, like I said I wasn't too far from the incident anyway but when the first act of violent conduct occurred I can't remember what exactly I did but I feel, reflecting back now, that I froze. Mainly watch rather than reacting. It didn't do me any harm really because I think I saw everything, no one was claiming something else happened so I noticed most of it. I don't think I could've prevented any of the violent conduct and I certainly wasn't getting in the way of the players ;)
I could've maybe got closer quicker though, instead of watching, but I was in a great position to see everything.

I don't know, I can't decide whether I was right or wrong :confused:
 
You were right with the sanctions you gave out and sounds like your positioning was great as well. So I'd see the glass as half full if I were you! The only point I was giving (with hindsight which always helps!) is that getting to the scene of the initial offense more quickly might have helped, as your proactive presence might have made clear that you were just about to sort it out appropriately thus calming the players down

Onwards and upwards :)
 
@HullRef well done.
Must be something in the air. Wednesday's Sunday League Trophy Final, player gets injured near the touchline and a spectator jumps over the wall and moves towards the field intending to have a go at the player who injured him. I intercept him and "advise" him to leave the field. I kept a note of where he went and the referee ensured he was ejected from the stadium.
 
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