When it comes to youth football I adjust my tollerance to the language on the field of play depending on the age of the players, the younger they are the less tollerance I have, I'm not saying that as they get older I'm dishing out cards all over the place more that I'm talking to them advising them that I don't like what they are saying and to cut it out. However there are 2 words that I will not accept and strangly both of them begin with the letter "C" and end with the letter "T" and if either of those words were to be spoken at me then I don't care if the are U12 or U18 they are going to walk. They would also walk if they use the Charlie Uniform November Tango word in any sort of agressive way to anyone else so to me the fact that this player used both words in the same sentence to you is a no brainer, he got what he deserved.
Your point about what kids see on TV though is a good one, I remember a few years ago I was doing an U13 game and that was one player that was being a little "loose" with the words that he was using, I tried the "having a quick word as I'm walking past" trick a couple of times to get him to stop but he either didn't hear or didn't want to hear because he just carried on. Eventually I had had enough and decided that I had to give him a "formal" talking to, game was stopped and I tried to explain to him that his language was not what I wanted to hear and if he carried on then he was going to find himself in trouble, of course he just wouldn't listen, wanted to argue with me and I got to the point of getting so fed up with this that I was going to give him a caution. His manager could see that I was getting to the end of my patience and immediately shouted out "Sub Ref", I looked at him, pointed to the player in question, he nodded his head so I said "Good idea" and let the change take place (ok maybe I should have cautioned the player but at the time I thought it was a good solution). So in the end everyone is happy, me because the player is off, the other team because they didn't like what the player was saying (understandble) and the manager because I'm not booking one of his players but the twist to this tale (and I apologise for taking so long to get there but I had to explain the whole thing), is that as the player is walking along the sidelines with his manager I clearly heard him say "Why is the ref picking on me, Wayne Rooney does it all the time"!!!
And our more senior colleagues believe that what they do doesn't affect what we at the lower level have to put up with, well I have only two words for that, bah humug.
