+1 Same as the player playing the ball on the ground -- too many refs poorely explain when they called PIADM for a player on the ground, which supports the myth that it is simply playing the ball on the ground that is the offense.
If they persist throughout the game I usually tell them "there is no such thing" (i.e. Handling). That usually confuses them enough they are quiet for awhile.
Or they don't want to escalate the comment. I have seen many, many refs that could have simply defused a situation by not being a smart ass and either ignoring the comments completely or, at the half, explaining to the boisterous parent what the actual call is. A few weeks ago I was way early taking my u13 daughter to her game and came across the center ref checking and repairing the goal netting. Got into a humorous conversation with him about parents making comments, much like what has been said in this thread. During the game the AR put up his flag for offsides but the center didn't see it so I said "offsides ref". He came over to me and before he could say anything I pointed to his AR. He turned around and smiled. Not all of us parents are as knowledgeable and not one of you refs are infallible.
The above story reminds me of a game I did a month or two ago. U13G, I'm CR. Getting my stuff on before the game and a parent approaches me to tell me that this team has been having problems this season with the referees. He tells me that he's seen lots of incorrect offside calls all year. Tells me that most of the "linesmen" he's seen all year don't know what they're doing. Now, I don't think I'm alone in saying that I have no interest in listening to some stupid parent complaining about previous weeks' referees, and the way this guy was talking, it sure seemed like he was a prime candidate to cause problems for me during the game. So I simply told him that he wouldn't be saying anything to me or my assistants during the game. For some reason, this made him upset, and he just went off saying that he was just trying to make "friendly conversation" and that for turning it into something else I was a "piece of work." IIRC, he may have thrown in a word of mild personally insulting abusive language. I just said thanks and ignored him from then on. He didn't cause any problems during the game.
This has happened to me dozens of times. I've never gotten a good response from such a "helpful" parent except when I essentially nod and smile and say "thanks, we'll give our best game" or something to that neutral effect. 9 out of 10 they bitched anyway. Go figure.
Why not? If they've had 90 mins (or whatever it is for that age) to try and score, why should I give them an extra unwarranted minute?
I think we need a replay button for this issue . . . I'm statying out of it this time round . . . Ticky, if you go through old striings, you'll find (mor than once) long back-and-forths on the philosophy and tradtiion of timing. . .
Could cause a mass confrontation, as this video shows: Play begins at 1:53 in the video (though I'd recommend watching the whole thing )
Where are you before the game that a parent comes up to you before to "Game" you on what's going on? Sometimes the coach comes up to me and tries that stuff but I've never had a parent try it in all my years.
Midfield. That's one of the problems with having teams on opposite sides. I'm getting my stuff on at midfield with one team's bench to my right and that team's parents to my left.
Yeah that's crazy...I've never had a parent come up to me on the field. They just ignore me. Maybe you need to work on how mean you look.
I can see the merits in both arguments, but I just have my own personal take on it. Was there a general consensus on the "correct/right/proper" way to do it?
I wasn't on the field, I was at midfield between the bench and the parents. If the benches were both on that side, I was where a fourth official would be positioned.
OH! I forgot a brilliant piece from Saturday. I was in attendance as AR1, AR2 was there, but the CR has yet to show up and we were about five minutes from KO. I started prepping to do the CR and my AR explained to the coaches that I would handle doing offsides and such until he showed up. Coach from one team comes up to me just after I've had a toss and suggests to me that it "would be more fair" if I controlled one half of the field, with the other AR controlling the other. After trying not to laugh in his face, I told him I was more than capable of handling the situation and that what he is suggesting just wouldn't work. I don't think he completely understood why but he didn't really complain, and I nailed a few early offside calls just to prove myself to him
Posted this (with other game details) somewhere before. Blue attacker is fouled just as (or just after) I blow the final whistle. Coach yells "You can't end the game on a foul!"
"Can't be offsides [sic], ball was passed backward!" Sure, coach.. makes no difference where the players were in relation to the defenders/ball as long as the ball is passed backward..
Was AR on a game last September where a coach threatened to protest the game over this issue. He claimed to be a referee and an assignor. Sad, but lol.
I was reffing a U12 game last year on a small field (almost looked like a U10 field), and the ball was bouncing off player's arms all the time. I wasn't calling it most the time (because it was obviously unintentional at close quarters), and one of the coaches was going nuts. His team lost, and he came up to me after the game and just let me have it with both barrels. I tried to explain to him the three things I look for (could have avoided it, unnatural position, continued direction after accidental contact), but he wouldn't have any of it. Then he told me he was a ref, so I calmly told him I was doing my best to call the game as described in the LOTG and ATR, and honestly encouraged him to review the "Deliberate Handling" guidelines on page 49 of the ATR. Finally the field administrator had to come and ask him to leave me alone (and leave). So, six months later I'm going to ref at a tournament and sure enough there's the coach, only he's there to referee as well. I was just going to avoid him, but he saw me and ran over. He asked if I remembered him (I pretended not to until he reminded me about the game) and then he profusely apologized and said he had gone back and read up and could see that he was totally off-base in his understanding of "Deliberate Handling" and he had been trying to call it differently since then. Needless to say, I was very surprised!
I'm having a hard time imagining a scenario where the flag should go up in this spot. Maybe an attacker passes back, then the ball deflects off a defender forward to a second attacker in an off side position?
Think harder 81. Player in an offside position runs back to pick up a ball that was played back by his team mate. that's one.
That's the one. Made even more fun when he runs back into his own side of the field to collect the ball . . . had my own "there's one thing you don't understand" convesation, with not only "I'ma ref" but "I've taught the ref course" woven in about this one. It is a bit counterintuitive. (And I confess to having swallowed the flag on an extreme version of this, [bad AR! bad AR!] where an attacker was a yard offside at the time of a GK punt, which proceeded to bounce twice untouched before that attacker (now 20 yards onto her own side of the field) was the first to touch. I'm pretty sure that I was the only person there that had a remote clue that there was an offside infraction and as I saw it started wondernig how long it would take utnil it occurred to the R to look my way, how in the world I was going to sell it, whether the R was going to accept the call . . . and by the time I finished overthinking it, I had frozen and not made the call. Live and learn.)