The Ref Stop

Refereeing S.Housery

I

ICan'tSpeyk

New Member
Level 6 Referee
Slow day in the office. Curious, and not that it is to be encouraged, but does anyone have any sh*thousery stories or tactics they use / have used?

God forbid anyone has a personality but if you did / do, feel free to share.

One of my Dad's friends as I was growing up, 55+ year old Spanish and quirky, once told me he was involved in a feisty local "Sunday League" match back home in Madrid (30 years or whatever ago). He had thrown out about 11 cautions in the first 30 minutes. He'd had enough, called the captains in again, then proceeded to throw away his yellow card and pull out his red. "From now on, I will only be using this, i want no more!"

He reckoned that player behaviour was perfect for the proceeding 55 minutes until someone caught the winger late. He called him over and pulled out his spare yellow card to caution him. He claims it was in the local paper but I've yet to see any evidence!

The detail he provided was impressive and he didn't mention of any relation to Bob Mortimer.
 
The Ref Stop
Probably the closest thing I can think of from memory was a friendly match.

Gave a fk for a foul in favour of defending team and a player whines at me for not playing advantage.

Later in the match, I played an advantage in a similar place, as they requested. They promptly gave the ball away, and conceded a goal.

I took the opportunity to tell him that was why I don't normally play advantages in the defending 3rd, real light bulb moment for the player, I think, as he agreed with me.
 
Similar to James' but on the line. I was AR1 on a game last season and the home bench always complained about assistants waiting to flag for offside because it "tires their players more than needed".

In the second half the home team were attacking in my half and there was a perfect wait and see moment that led to the winning goal late on in the game. Next time I went past them I took the opportunity to say "bet you're glad I held the flag that time".

They haven't complained about a delayed flag since.
 
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Similar to the OP I suppose, but an EFL referee that I know has told me that in the past, and only with players he knows he can get away with it with, he's said 'that was not a good tackle, I can't quite decide if it's yellow or red. You choose - pick a pocket, left or right...'

The player goes 'you what?'

'You're gonna choose red or yellow, pick left or right pocket'

The player, slightly aghast, reluctantly chooses left pocket, and said referee takes his yellow card out of his left pocket and cautions. As the player was walking away, he calls them back and smiles as he reveals he also had a yellow in his right pocket.
 
In a step 3 game two defenders were chasing a striker, centrally, no other defenders, and one of them took him out. I was running straight down the barrel and just saw a jumble of legs with absolutely no idea who had fouled him. Definite DOGSO but then to make things worse I panicked and managed to forget which two defenders it was. Went to speak to the active AR but he had no idea, staring at the other AR on the half way line but he had nothing for me, was being observed so the panic levels were now high.

So I tried a trick I'd been told about but never thought would work, pulled my wallet out with just yellow showing and shouted "yes please". To my immense relief one of the defenders walked over at which point I put the wallet away and pulled the red from my back pocket. He wasn't happy and made it clear that he wouldn't have owned up if he hadn't seen the yellow card, but off he went. Observer made it very clear after that he knew I didn't have a clue and had blagged it, but ultimately I got it right and he had to credit me for it. Lesson learnt and I never chased directly after defender and attacker after this, always ran diagonally to get an angle.
 
Was also on the line as an L4, we were lined up in the tunnel and the L3 referee asked both me and the other assistant if we had a coin as he had forgotten his. Neither of us did so I offered to go back to get one, but he said not to bother. Broke off to check the nets, came back with the captains called in, we'd assumed he was going to do rock paper scissors or what hand is the whistle in. But oh no, he turns to one of the captains and asks "heads or tails", then flicks an imaginary coin and says heads. All 4 of us were looking at him like he'd just landed from the planet zog, he says "you get a half on each side and a kick off each, get on with it", at which point one of the captains says "fair enough ref". All ended with a laugh and I think he actually got more respect from the captains as a result (not sure I'd recommend it these days though).
 
RustyRef said:
Was also on the line as an L4, we were lined up in the tunnel and the L3 referee asked both me and the other assistant if we had a coin as he had forgotten his. Neither of us did so I offered to go back to get one, but he said not to bother. Broke off to check the nets, came back with the captains called in, we'd assumed he was going to do rock paper scissors or what hand is the whistle in. But oh no, he turns to one of the captains and asks "heads or tails", then flicks an imaginary coin and says heads. All 4 of us were looking at him like he'd just landed from the planet zog, he says "you get a half on each side and a kick off each, get on with it", at which point one of the captains says "fair enough ref". All ended with a laugh and I think he actually got more respect from the captains as a result (not sure I'd recommend it these days though).
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This has worked for me in the past.

There was one time it didn't and I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Convinced a random player to take the caution somehow and the observer backed me 🙈
 
JamesL said:
This has worked for me in the past.

There was one time it didn't and I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Convinced a random player to take the caution somehow and the observer backed me 🙈
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Think you replied to the wrong post, I can't see you flicking an imaginary coin? 😂
 
I’ve done the flip side where you call for a player and nobody comes and you look like an idiot 🤣 thankfully it was for a bollocking about holding at corners, not a caution, and in the end I just owned it and said to the group of them ‘ok I was hoping when I said that someone was gonna give themselves up, but since nobody did, you’ve got away with it, just be sure I’m watching for it from now on!
 
I have two stories somewhat similar to some of the above.

I reffed in a league several years ago for over 10 years. One particular player was well known for his whining for anything that goes against him, often too much. Nice bloke othewise. Every game he'd come to me prematch pleading to be patient with him because he can't help it. At some point I made a deal with him. If he is coming at me and I know I'm going to card him, I'd put my hand in my pocket, give him a slight delay and ask him to walk away. If he walks away I'd leave the card in the pocket.

It worked nicely most times. Even the times I eneded up carding him, he didnt complain about the card itself.
 
Similar to rusty but an all in browl. First time I used the tactic it felt really good. I have used it a few times after that too.

After careles but physical challenge in front of the bench, the two players went down, immediately on their feet and face off, push and shove and handbags. And in no time at all bench and other players were in there mostly trying to break it off. I lost the original two players amongst others. After it settled had a chat with my ARs and we all agreed cautioning both the instigators was the right action but neither knew who they were, with one AR thinking possibly identifying one player.

I isolated the two captains with a bit of bla bla, control your player etc and that on this instance I can not let the two who started it go unpunished. Took the yellow card out and asked the captains to call their player in. They were called in, cautioned and we got on with the game. Both my ARs were quite impressed 😆
 
Ran a women's national league line last weekend - team battling relegation vs a mid table side.

A quirk of the ground is the benches are like 20 yards apart, so I'm only ever in front of the away dugout.

As I look down the line in the other half I give a defensive throw to the home team - cue outrage from the manager and bench behind me.

Straight from the throw the ball goes to an away attacker and they score - turn to the bench "Assist for the lino"
 
one said:
Similar to rusty but an all in browl. First time I used the tactic it felt really good. I have used it a few times after that too.

After careles but physical challenge in front of the bench, the two players went down, immediately on their feet and face off, push and shove and handbags. And in no time at all bench and other players were in there mostly trying to break it off. I lost the original two players amongst others. After it settled had a chat with my ARs and we all agreed cautioning both the instigators was the right action but neither knew who they were, with one AR thinking possibly identifying one player.

I isolated the two captains with a bit of bla bla, control your player etc and that on this instance I can not let the two who started it go unpunished. Took the yellow card out and asked the captains to call their player in. They were called in, cautioned and we got on with the game. Both my ARs were quite impressed 😆
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Love this! Had a game at the weekend and none of the ARs or me saw an incident where two players have got into a face off quickly followed by both teams piling in. As none of us officials saw it I couldn't caution the instigators - one player did get sent off for a running punch but I fessed up to the captains that none of us saw the initial action so I can't caution them. Wish I'd seen this last week before the game 🫣...

Teach me to not stay on top of the forum!
 
A game I was playing in (many moons ago), I let rip at the ref for an awful offside decision. He smiled, then replied..."fella ! I'm sorry, that may well have been a mistake. However, that's the only error i've made in this match, yet i've watched you smash 3 shots over the bar from inside the penalty area. So I don't think you should be criticising anybody in this game". I smiled back and said "fair point !"
 
BCMilan said:
A game I was playing in (many moons ago), I let rip at the ref for an awful offside decision. He smiled, then replied..."fella ! I'm sorry, that may well have been a mistake. However, that's the only error i've made in this match, yet i've watched you smash 3 shots over the bar from inside the penalty area. So I don't think you should be criticising anybody in this game". I smiled back and said "fair point !"
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Reminds me of when I was playing centre half at Hackney Marshes and my fellow centre half, also my best mate, said to the referee "ref, I'm playing up here (holding his hand high) and you're refereeing down here (holding his hand low). Whilst the referee was indeed extremely bad, we were 8-0 down at the time and I just burst out laughing. I used it in my best man speech a few years later much to his embarrassment 😂

I think the referee was quite new and didn't know what to make of it, I'd have gone to town if a player losing 8-0 made a comment like that to me, even more so if it was a defender.
 
Recently, after the final whistle of a heated game, the home team were quite unhappy. Behind my back, I heard a player say "you're a f-ing cheat" - clearly directed to me.

As I turned around to see at least 3 or 4 home players behind me, I had no clue which one of them had said the remark.

"I bet you're not man enough to say that to my face, are you!" I said, to nobody in particular, in their general direction. Like a moth to the flame, the player repeated the phrase (and even more aggressively than the first time!).

Thank you very much... here's your red card!
 
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Around 5 or 6 years ago, having a particularly off day in terms of my own performance (you know the ones I mean, where you start badly and it just seems to snowball). Lots of player protest and a bit of (deserved) ridicule from the sidelines as the match progressed. About 20 mins into the second half, a home team attacker is sounding off at me from the floor after the ball goes out for a goal kick claiming he'd been fouled and "how the hell did I not see it?"
My loud and public response, borne out of frustration at my own poor showing up to that point was, "Look mate, in case you haven't already noticed, I'm having probably the worst game of my refereeing career so far and you gobbing off at me isn't helping, so please just STFU and let me concentrate on getting to the end so we can all just forget about it and go home okay?!!"

Cue around 19 players all giving a big cheer, laughing and applauding. "Fair play to you ref, you might be s(hit) today but at least you're honest about it!". :D
 
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