The Ref Stop

Junior/Youth Unsure about a call I made

HarryD

HarryD

Well-Known Member
Had my first ever game today, an U11E clash where the blue team won 13-0. (Orange vs Blues) Towards the end of the game (the score was 11-0 at this point) I thought I heard the Blue striker say 'the referees cheating' because I awarded a goal kick, and I am confident that it was the correct decision. However, because I wasn't 100% sure he actually said that I let it slide. Afterwards, (and this is the call) the Blue Captain said 'so much favouritism' and being positive he said that, questioned it. He explained that I was being 'favouritist' towards the home team so I pulled out the yellow card. Had he been on an 11 a side pitch, I'd have definitely sent him off for it. Was I right to be this lenient?
 
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The Ref Stop
I know some are not keen to produce cards in youth games. However, if you are going to produce one (and he certainly deserved one) for such a comment then I would have gone red for OFFINABUS as I would interpret that as him calling you a cheat and was dumb enough to say it to your face. That said others may believe a caution for dissent was the correct decision. Welcome to the complicated and twisted world of refereeing! We all have opinions and rarely all agree on anything!

What I would stress though, this was your first game. Do not be too hard on yourself about anything that happened today, it is a learning experience. And with experience you will learn to deal with this kind of player nonsense in different ways - be it through humour, the withering look or going to the pocket. It will come with time and practice as you develop your refereeing muscles (skills)!

How did the game go apart from the idiots comment?
 
Yeah, I was heavily debating to issue the red for OFFINABUS but I felt that bearing in mind he's 10/11 years old, the 'a £10 fine will stop you from doing that again' approach was probably the right one, although I'm having second thoughts now. After all, I've seen that debate on here many a time and it's extremely unlikely that we'll all agree. My time-keeping was extremely poor - stopping the watch for every throw etc (the first half ran for 50 minutes, oops!) Apart from that, I got no dissent for my decisions (apart from one mouthy kid who was one word away from a booking). All in all I enjoyed it though, and got a nice £18 in my pocket! Thanks for the words of wisdom @Supermonkey !
 
HarryD I think you got it right. You weren't sure on the first comment but you were sure on the second and took action. Well done for having the confidence to caution in your first game.
 
I agree with Brian. A caution was the right decision. Congratulations on your first game, by the way.
 
@HarryD - at that age I don't think you need to take the fine into consideration as it's almost certainly his parents paying it. For me me that's not dissent. It's either red for OFFINABUS or nothing. For me, red.
 
Well congratulations on making it through your first game alive :)
I'm glad it went well, just on the stopping the watch thing make sure you don't stop it every time the ball goes out, I was playing last weekend for a Sunday league team (whoever won this match stayed up the other went down), the ref (who was awful) played 15 minutes of extra time in the first half because he stopped his watch constant.

On the subject of the yellow card. I think you were spot on, I know people disagree with me but I think that that is dissent, I don't that it is enough for OFFINABUS (even with a really low tolerance level) but I think it's too much to just let go. Maybe in the future as you grow in confidence and the players get older you can start to play that sort of stuff off with humour, something like "well I'm not responsible for all 11 goals", that might work better to diffuse the situation but with young age groups the players don't understand.

Well done though, the main thing is, did you enjoy the game on a whole? First game's out of the way now, onwards and upwards. :)
 
@Brian Hamilton and @Ryan Owens - thanks! I feel a lot better about my decision now. @Southend-ref , I can really see where you are coming from and was tempted to do the same, but decided to take the common sense approach bearing in mind the age. @HullRef thanks:) Yeah, I'm NEVER doing that with the watch again, definitely a moment to forget (although I doubt I ever will!) Yeah, bearing in mind that it's my brothers age group its pointless using humour because they spend too much time watching FIFA youtubers where the only point of comedic value they have is 'raging' over the game and throwing their controllers at the wall. Hard to demonstrate as a ref on a football pitch :p In all seriousness, I would as I start to ref older age groups. On the whole I enjoyed it, being too lenient with cards is kind of playing on my mind - a challenge from behind and a fair bit of dissent from literally three players (not bad) was left uncarded. Oh well, I'll learn from it - onwards and upwards from here!
 
I really try not to give cards at young age groups like U11's, sometimes a good talking to works much better and (even though some refs will hate me for this) I ask the manager to take the player off for 5/10 mins to calm the player down. I've not had an instance yet where that hasn't worked.
 
It's obviously not nice to issue a card to a U11, but (although your method is suitable for 9 a side,but generally preferred in 7 a side games) I feel as though players should be punished at a young age for any bad offences they commit. After all, what's the use of letting a 16 year old on the pitch who doesn't realise that backchat and calling the ref a cheat is wrong? They'll be sent off after 15 minutes and then have a large fine and a suspension to follow. Best to book them at that age, and if deemed extremely necessary then get your red out. You may have his parents threatening to appeal and be called some names which aren't very polite to say the least, but we're told to not listen to that and to get on with it - not our problem at the end of the day! But what do I know? Just a mere level 9 peasant:P
 
Haha. I would/do punish the most serious red card offences as normal but with yellows I find that the main cause of these is the child's frustration, once they get taken off they have 5/10 mins to cool down and then they know when they've gone too far. All kids want to do is play football, sometimes brandishing cards can be seen as a badge of honour to them and their mates so the easiest way to really make them think about their actions is to stop them from playing for a period of time because that's all they want to do.
 
Yeah that's a good shout! I'll make sure I use that one, although the manager of the booked player was relieved I didn't get rid of him - they have a 'Winner takes all' 1st vs 2nd match on Sunday which is the last game of the season, and like I said in the initial post it was the captain. Shows that common sense does prevail (but only if it won't affect the result of the game)
 
though it may well affect the result of a future game, Harry

As Monkey will tell you, it's a minefield :)
 
That's a good point tbf! Reffing is one of the most difficult jobs going - No matter how correct you are by law, you're incorrect. Oh well - have to get used to being wrong :P
 
Slight correction. Better to get used to being right all the time. But being the only person who thinks so! :D
 
Yeah that sounds about right hahaha! It'll be interesting to see what this week's game brings!
 
Yeah id say yellow but thats just my opinion, I was watching an u9s game (as a neutral) and the ref thought a player had said something about him and he consulted me as a fellow referee and a neutral to the game and I heard a kid loud and clear say 'hows that a free kick you ****' so he sent him off which waz right IMO regardless of age, I havent had anything that extreme but l get U9's and U 10s questioning me constantly (as they do) so I just explain, if they imply or say im a cheat ill call them over and just have a word with them (under 12+ id yellow) but the young ones I have a word, then yellow if I have to. Ive yellowed a player for giving 2 fingers to spectators but as he was U11 and I got told about it by a neutral referee so it was a tad sketchy so I left it at yellow, but for younger what I do is if a red card offence occurs, ill say to the manager to take him off or ill send him off to try and avoid it but if its very serious ill just red him. Thats just my opinion, it can be difficult to tread the line between enforcing the laws and leiniancy for ages sometimes
 
Leniency is something we will never agree on so I reckon we should probably leave the leniency discussion there (so this discussion doesn't get locked like my other one!:P) Yeah, that line is difficult, particularly in my case yesterday where both managers ran onto the pitch to have a go at me. Misconduct reports were filled for both of them, by the way! Anyway, I reckon you're probably right Steve - your methods both apply the laws well and aid the spirit of the game too.
 
I don't think I could give much more advice than has already said. However, after stumbling on this thread, I noticed you said you played a 50 minute half - how did that happen? U11s here play 25 minute halves, so you played double that with extra time?

I appreciate you said that time keeping was poor and that's obviously something to learn from, but I'm not quite sure how you could possibly play that much.
 
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