How and when do you guys do your pre-match kit check? Of course, I always try to do one, but it tends to feel a bit awkward and as if I’m disrupting the teams in their pre-match set up. I could do with some advice on when to do it so it causes minimal disruption or annoyance, but also so players have enough time to sort out any potential issues.
Pre-Match Kit Check
- Thread starter SammyT5
- Start date
Ideal time is when they're all stood in a circle stretching, for the exact reason you suggest, it's minimally disruptive. But if you're getting to 10-15 minutes before kick off and haven't managed to catch them in the ideal situation, then you just have to do it when it's convenient for you.
Anubis
RefChat Addict
Assuming this is public park with no changing room/changing rooms not in use at the moment?
If its a self contained ground witn changing, quick glance during warm up for outrageous undergarments and a quick reminder to anyones attire that you take exception to
Then as teams come out dressing room.
I never ever go into the dressing room.
If its a rammy free for alll turn up ten mins before ko on council park 9 then if am giving an opinion, then you just need to be flexible, and make best of sitiation.
or the unspoken option of, not doing it at all.
It's a backside covering exercise, same as the pitch inspections. Do your checks and if something happens as a result of poor equipment/issues with the pitch, you missing it is just human error. Fail to do the checks and it's conscious negligence from you.
Doesn't matter if it's the most perfunctory, surface-level checks the world has ever seen. Do them and make sure you're seen doing them!
Doesn't matter if it's the most perfunctory, surface-level checks the world has ever seen. Do them and make sure you're seen doing them!
Justylove
RefChat Addict
If your league insists on the respect handshake/fistbump before the game.
Line both teams up Champions League style, then do your check there.
Team A - out behind them for bootcheck, back in front for jewellery check.
Team B continue the walk along the line out in front, then back behind them for the boot check.
Return to original position, handshake/fist bump (which I use as a secondary check in case I've missed something on jewellery)
Then underway.
Line both teams up Champions League style, then do your check there.
Team A - out behind them for bootcheck, back in front for jewellery check.
Team B continue the walk along the line out in front, then back behind them for the boot check.
Return to original position, handshake/fist bump (which I use as a secondary check in case I've missed something on jewellery)
Then underway.
Honestly never gone checking studs like this...
Have always done jewellery checks etc but never walked along looking at boots
Justylove
RefChat Addict
Dotting the i's and crossing the t's
For me it's easy to ensure I've got all players where I want them and as I've got to go out and back it's no drama. Never had to pull anyone up on boots. Jewellery on the other hand....including in a game between 2 step 5 clubs this season
They' ll try and get away with it at all levels!!Dotting the i's and crossing the t's
For me it's easy to ensure I've got all players where I want them and as I've got to go out and back it's no drama. Never had to pull anyone up on boots. Jewellery on the other hand....including in a game between 2 step 5 clubs this season
snap_RL
New Member
Jewellery check absolutely, but has anyone EVER spotted anything on a boot/stud check?
What are we supposed to be looking for? Running spikes instead of studs?
It seems like a ridiculous old school hangover from when people wore boots with metal studs. Don't think I've seen anything other than moulds for ages.
What are we supposed to be looking for? Running spikes instead of studs?
It seems like a ridiculous old school hangover from when people wore boots with metal studs. Don't think I've seen anything other than moulds for ages.
Anubis
RefChat Addict
100%
I said for years when most parks were grass, unless someone has a nail instead of a stud, what am I actually looking for?
Then need to measure the sharpness of a stud, test its edges?
absolutely not.
Folk checking mouldies on astro just look ridiculous, subs coming on flicking up plastic dimple to an AR, complete absurdity.
I once spotted someone was missing their toe stud. But a) that's one example in ~7 years of reffing, 2) you're right to say you mostly get moulded boots nowadays and that wasn't likely to be a danger to anyone!
socal lurker
RefChat Addict
I look at the tops of the shoes as I walk around. If someone has something that isn't obviously a soccer shoe on, I may take a closer look, but I've never found anything objectionable. (Baseball cleats would be a real issue as they have sharp metal spikes, but I doubt that is an issue in the UK.
And I've never seen a player try to wear metal baseball cleats to play soccer here, either. )We had a ref who did alot of games for my team when I was a kid who came into the changing rooms and we had to stand up and lift our boots one by one and he ran his fingers over our studs (all metal back then).
Bizzare looking back at it. How much dog muck did he get over his fingers down the years? If someone did have a sharp stud it would've cut his finger. Seemed perfectly normal at the time but looking back its just odd
Anubis
RefChat Addict
yes, thats the exact situation in my head.
today that sounds like a fetish the guy had, rather than anything to do with refereeing
zarathustra
RefChat Addict
I tend to have a quick look while the players are stud in a group stretching off, I always check jewellery and shin pads etc.
boots is a tricky one, the laws only say that players have to be wearing footwear, and that their equipment must not be dangerous.
boots is a tricky one, the laws only say that players have to be wearing footwear, and that their equipment must not be dangerous.
Playing devil's advocate, many 3G pitches ban metal studs or blades. Technically not down to the referee, but I've been asked by groundsmen to enforce it. You say they are checking mouldies, but you don't know they are mouldies if you don't look at them.
Anubis
RefChat Addict
Let's be honest, no one really does. Even if referees line players up to check it is nothing more than a cursory glance. And at most 3G grounds you have to walk across concrete to get to the pitch, so you can actually detect metal studs without checking anything as you can hear them on the concrete. A tactic that many groundsmen use to some level of success