A&H

First Game tomorrow!

ChazSizeland

New Member
Level 8 Referee
Newton Flotman Reserves v Wensum Albion in the Norwich & District League Division 2!

No idea what level that is but I'm not expecting world beaters!
 
The Referee Store
So, first game done!

There was an Assessor there for my first ever game so that only added to the nerves. I was playing 'Senior' football up until last season and the game on Saturday was of a really poor standard when compared to what I was used to playing wise, in some instances that was advantageous but with other things it was definitely a disadvantage.

Firstly the pace of the game meant I felt pretty comfortable at keeping up with play (I was a bit nervous as I was a keeper and not the quickest) so that was great. The assessor said that my positioning wasn't great though as I tended to get sucked towards the ball and was a bit close to play a couple of times but said I was in the right ‘general areas’. I also ran a hell of a lot more than I needed to apparently because of it!

The hardest thing for me was throw ins. Both teams were playing rock/paper/scissors to see who had to run the line and the linos that eventually did it were next to useless so I ended up having to give almost every throw in for the entire game. On a fair few of them it was impossible to tell who’s throw in it was so I just was guessing. I ended up having a word with one of the skippers in the end to tell him if the lad on the line wasn’t going to do it properly then he needed to get someone else to do it! The Assessor liked that!

The game itself was pretty one sided and I let as much go as I possibly could. Got a couple of nice advantages in there which was good. No bookings. Gave such a stonewall penalty that not even the defenders complained about it!

The only other thing the Assessor said was that I should’ve booked someone for kicking the ball away but I let him off. I was going to book him but he was a young lad (about 16 I reckon) on the team that was 3-0 down and there was 15 seconds of the game left. He was caught offside so picked up the ball and kicked it straight up in the air about 15 feet. I pulled him over and told him that was a bit stupid but I’d let him off as there was 15 seconds left and it’d take longer than that to write his name down! I told him to think about it in future as I could quite easily cost him £15! The Assessor said I still should’ve booked him, I would’ve done 2 minutes before he did it but just thought it’d be common sense to let it go.

All in all I was pretty pleased. The Assessor said that I definitely wouldn’t look like a new ref to anyone else (positioning gave it away to him but he said nobody that wasn’t trained would’ve realised that I was in the wrong places) and said overall that I did ‘bloody well’!
 
well done pal, i was similar to you when i 1st started, having played senior football. I didn't like giving out cautions for these sort of offences when i knew i could manage them. What you have to consider is A - what happens to future refs now in similar situation, B- sometimes people need a caution to calm themselves down, no on forced them to do it and C - boot on other foot would he have spared you. Not only that you now lose marks which if you go for promotion can be the difference between a bad, average, good and very good report.
 
Sounds like you did a good job and if the assessor is saying 'well done' you must have done.

With regards the 'non-booking' at the end, assessors need everything done by the letter of the law, otherwise you will get marked down, whereas here it sounds like you used common sense.

Unless I had any issues prior to that with the player, I would probably have done the same so near the end of the game. Had he been a mouthy one, or had I had to have a word with him earlier in the game, the card would have been out. The offence would be ''Delaying the Restart' and kicking it str8 up in the air I guess didn't cause a delay, but that would be a hard sell to a assessor!
 
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