The Ref Stop

Laws/Rules that you didn't know existed until becoming a referee

Dave Ambrose said:
Also didn’t realise the player taking a PK can’t receive the ball when rebounding off the post or crossbar (or from a corner/FK). Have never seen it happen though.
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I've seen plenty of penalties rebound to the taker but strangely enough, if you'd asked me a year ago, I would have said I'd never seen a player play a ball that rebounded to them off the goal post from a corner. However now I've seen it twice in the last year or so.

On both cases, it certainly seemed to surprise the commentators who appeared totally flummoxed by it. On one occasion, if I remember correctly, they even seemed to come to the conclusion that the referee had messed up and given an incorrect offside decision. They correctly identified that this should have been impossible but never actually figured out what it was really given for.
 
The Ref Stop
Dave Ambrose said:
Until reading the laws, I didn’t realise that a player can’t be offside from a goal kick. Not a lot of teams try it, would probably catch the AR out. Also didn’t realise the player taking a PK can’t receive the ball when rebounding off the post or crossbar (or from a corner/FK). Have never seen it happen though.
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Yes on all counts, almost. Seen teams trying it. Been caught off guard (despite knowing the law).

Seen double touch from a penalty and from a corner off a post. Not seen double touch from a FK off the frame. You can also have a double touch off the frame from a throw (improbable), goal kick against opponent frame (very improbable)) or own frame now (possible).
 
Still in the process of doing my course so haven’t seen anything in games yet but the biggest surprise I’ve found was things like chipping the ball up to header it back to the keeper.
 
Dave Ambrose said:
Not a lot of teams try it, would probably catch the AR out.
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Teams don't try it, but defenders do! There's always one lad trying to get people up on the halfway line at the goal kick, which is just suicidal against any keeper with a good kick tbh.

Have had assistants flag for offside via a throw in before, fortunately, it was a pre-season friendly, which is the best time to screw up IMO.
 
Dave Ambrose said:
Until reading the laws, I didn’t realise that a player can’t be offside from a goal kick. Not a lot of teams try it, would probably catch the AR out. Also didn’t realise the player taking a PK can’t receive the ball when rebounding off the post or crossbar (or from a corner/FK). Have never seen it happen though.
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Loads don't know this. Once an enterprising player DID ask me before kick off!

Seen both players and fans appeal for offside from a GK at QPR!
 
RobOda said:
Teams don't try it, but defenders do! There's always one lad trying to get people up on the halfway line at the goal kick, which is just suicidal against any keeper with a good kick tbh.

Have had assistants flag for offside via a throw in before, fortunately, it was a pre-season friendly, which is the best time to screw up IMO.
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Yes you're right, defenders DO push up at GKs and most attackers dutifully follow them!
 
one said:
Yes on all counts, almost. Seen teams trying it. Been caught off guard (despite knowing the law).

Seen double touch from a penalty and from a corner off a post. Not seen double touch from a FK off the frame. You can also have a double touch off the frame from a throw (improbable), goal kick against opponent frame (very improbable)) or own frame now (possible).
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Always was possible, just now a lot more plausible. Under the old laws the GK kicked against the frame hard enough to leave the PA would have been in play.

While these boundary cases are extremely unlikely, they can help flesh out our understanding of the Laws. (And that used to be more true when the Laws were more concept based and had fewer specific scenarios.)
 
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Degnann said:
Still in the process of doing my course so haven’t seen anything in games yet but the biggest surprise I’ve found was things like chipping the ball up to header it back to the keeper.
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I only discovered that one when we did our mock exam a couple of weeks before the final one. Caught me out but I’ll never forget it now.

The other one I didn’t know of was there being no obligation to have nets. (Obviously most competition rules state them as needed, but not being in the LOTG surprised me)
 
Once had an old boy on the line in a game who came out with the following gem to me at half-time, after one of us mentioned the home 'keeper was getting reeeeeeeal close to the edge of the box when fly-kicking the ball upfield. "I hope she doesn't get any further cos I'd flag and you'd have to send her off."

Asked what he meant, and he was adamant that GK handling outside the box = red card. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Probably dead now.
 
PinnerPaul said:
Loads don't know this. Once an enterprising player DID ask me before kick off!
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This wasn't a game up on Teesside by any chance, was it? My younger brother had a tremendous dead ball kick and it became a bit of a tactic for his team. They would always check with the referee before kick off, to make sure he was aware of it. I saw it work an absolute treat one time. They put their striker up about 10 yards into the opponent's half at the first goal kick they got. As the opposition defenders took up position on the half way line, I could actually see them pointing at the striker, smiling and talking to each other (presumably about how stupid he was).

When the kick was taken they all confidently appealed for offside in unison and stood there dumbfounded as the striker collected the ball, sprinted upfield with it and slotted it past the keeper.
 
PinnerPaul said:
Loads don't know this. Once an enterprising player DID ask me before kick off!

Seen both players and fans appeal for offside from a GK at QPR!
Click to expand...

I’m guilty of it too before I knew, remember screaming at the AR at a Tranmere Lincoln game because Matt Rhead used to be up there for every goal kick.
 
I sit next to a former local manager at Bramall Lane and on quite a few occasions he’s spouted stuff that you just have to put him right on. 😂 The goal kick one, the ball clipping the arc on a corner and others!
 
Grayson said:
Once had an old boy on the line in a game who came out with the following gem to me at half-time, after one of us mentioned the home 'keeper was getting reeeeeeeal close to the edge of the box when fly-kicking the ball upfield. "I hope she doesn't get any further cos I'd flag and you'd have to send her off."

Asked what he meant, and he was adamant that GK handling outside the box = red card. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Probably dead now.
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Not quite the same context, but I had a manager insist that a 'qualified referee' had told him that all handballs by GK outside pen area were a red card.

When I asked him which of the 7 sending off offences applied in the incident in 'our' game, he went a bit quiet!
 
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Peter Grove said:
This wasn't a game up on Teesside by any chance, was it? My younger brother had a tremendous dead ball kick and it became a bit of a tactic for his team. They would always check with the referee before kick off, to make sure he was aware of it. I saw it work an absolute treat one time. They put their striker up about 10 yards into the opponent's half at the first goal kick they got. As the opposition defenders took up position on the half way line, I could actually see them pointing at the striker, smiling and talking to each other (presumably about how stupid he was).

When the kick was taken they all confidently appealed for offside in unison and stood there dumbfounded as the striker collected the ball, sprinted upfield with it and slotted it past the keeper.
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No - my user name is a bit of a clue that I don't get up to Teeside that much!:)
 
Grayson said:
Once had an old boy on the line in a game who came out with the following gem to me at half-time, after one of us mentioned the home 'keeper was getting reeeeeeeal close to the edge of the box when fly-kicking the ball upfield. "I hope she doesn't get any further cos I'd flag and you'd have to send her off."

Asked what he meant, and he was adamant that GK handling outside the box = red card. Wouldn't have it any other way.

Probably dead now.
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Has it ever been @Peter Grove? GK Handling outside the box = red card no matter what
 
JamesL said:
Has it ever been @Peter Grove? GK Handling outside the box = red card no matter what
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No. Plain and simple, outside the PA, the GK is simply an ordinary player. When DOGSO came in, and several GKs were send off for blocking shots just past the PA line, it created the now-all-too-prevalent-myth that all HBs by the GK outside the PA were send offs.
 
JamesL said:
Has it ever been @Peter Grove? GK Handling outside the box = red card no matter what
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Certainly not in the actual laws of the game but as I think I might have mentioned before, there was a youth tournament in Denmark that I took a team to a couple of times, that had this written into the rules of competition (at least in the U14 age bracket) presumably because they had bought into this myth and decided to formalise it.

U14 games in this tournament were played as 7-a-side on a reduced size pitch with no goal area and a ridiculously small penalty area. As Murphy's Law would dictate, in our very first match, our keeper lost her bearings, picked up a ball outside this area and was promptly dismissed. Just to be clear, there was no hint of DOGSO or denying a goal, it was a long through ball with no opponent nearby and not going into the goal.
 
To me how this could have developed as a myth makes sense. A DOGSO deliberate handball by a goalkeeper outside the area is more common (or at least more memorable) than a non-DOGSO one. This could lead a non-trained person to believe that goalkeeper handball outside the area is a red red card.
 
TSHudson said:
What?! Can competition rules actually override the LOTG?! So a competition could decide they're not playing offside or violent conduct is OK?!
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It's the golden rule: Them that has the gold makes the rules. Rules of competition can say all kinds of things, and refs need to either decline the games or apply the rules that the people paying them want applied.

Is it "OK"? Well, certainly many modifications that get made are not within the scope of modifications that are permissible according to IFAB. Absolutely true. But who is going to enforce that. (I play in an adult league that makes slide tackles (including a GK going down in front of an attackers) not only a foul but an automatic caution and prohibits challenging women with possession of the ball in the middle third of the field. Clearly not officially permissible modifications, but they run the league and they make the rules--its a low key we-all-go-to-work-tomorrow league with players from the 20s to the 60s.)
 
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