the best option in cases where something needs to be said is to send feedback to your assignor if you have a good relationship so that they are aware. With certain assignors I will do that for particularly good and particularly bad incidents/games. With other assignors I may not say anything
My 2017 statistics: total games 96 referee 71, assistant referee 24, 4th official 1. 19 of the referee assignments were high school duals. 23 of the referee assignments were solo. Oldest game O-58 men. Youngest game U-13 girls. USSF 46, college 13, high school 37 32 cautions (including those given by dual partners, all of which were justified, IMHO), 5 send offs. 19 cautions were for unsporting behavior (one of them to a high school coach for jewelry), 5 for persistent infringement, 4 for delaying the restart, 3 for dissent (one to a high school coach) and 1 for leaving the field without permission. 2 send offs for violent conduct (in the same game, O-50 men, fighting each other, game subsequently terminated when the sent off players continued their "discussion" in the parking lot and teammates went to "help" them), 2 for language (both in the same game to the same team, O-30 1st division men, losing badly in the league championship due to playing short three players, so, of course, it was my fault) and 1 for second caution (high school varsity girls, game terminated four minutes later due to deteriorating air quality. If she just could have held off going through somebody's back a few minutes longer. And she had a SFP red later in the season with somebody else.)
It was back when Oregon was on fire. I remember cause I went to visit some friends in Portland and I recall reading the story Law5 mentioned I think on here.
How does this happen so much in the O-50s? Our O-50 division took a year off because of continued stuff like this, and when they came back, they asked for all games to be 3-man. All of the vet divisions tend to be mouthy, but the O-50s, way more than the others, have the potential to get violent.
Our games were moved from Tuesday to Monday this week. A good thing / boys jv in short sleeves, varsity in long. Tuesday schools were closed because of snow and ice. It’s good to get back on the pitch after two months off. In iowa it would be two and a half more months. Love south Texas weather.
I do our mens 0-30 league and there is a fight every other match, no exaggeration. One thing I notice about ours is we have a lot of British gentlemen playing in it and they very much have a "swing first, drink a beer about it later" mentality out there. Since reffing those games, it's not all that hard to avoid them. Calling the game tighter and staying really close to offending players helps tons for me.
Had a REAL fun one Tuesday night. Long story short: Mens Open league (indoor, 9 v 9, 25 min halves, half field) College level players versus a mix of Latino men. College team is up 13-0 with about 5 minutes later. College team attacking forward and one of the Latino gentlemen started grabbing the shirt from behind and I was letting it go for about a second because the attacking player kept pushing and dribbling and had nobody in front of him and he was close to the PA. Eventually the Latino player wraps both arms around the player. Blow for the foul. Latino player kind of turns and looks at me and instead of letting go of the player, tries to throw him to the ground. Attacking player dodges it and two arm full on shoves the guy. Latino guy swings out at him. Misses, attacking player shoves him back again. Both teams grab their players and pull them back. About 10 seconds later another player from the Latino team comes running from 30 yards away and just punches two of the college team players. No idea why. Send all 3 offending players off. The guy who was attacking was livid I sent him off since he "had no choice but to fight back'. Told all 3 players to leave the facility. The two Latino players grabbed their stuff and walked out immediately. The player from the college team was an African American gentleman who continued to yell SEVERAL expletives at me, including calling me the n word several times. I told the college team they had 30 seconds to get their player to leave the facility or this game is called right now. Ultimately called it because this guy wouldn't let it go. Most frustrating part was it was just unnecessary. Down by 13 goals with a few min left so you're going to attack someone? At least some of the other fights I have had in mens leagues are when teams are close and emotions are high.
[QUOTE="Cornbred Ref, post: 36242648, member: 307143" Most frustrating part was it was just unnecessary. Down by 13 goals with a few min left so you're going to attack someone? At least some of the other fights I have had in mens leagues are when teams are close and emotions are high.[/QUOTE] Just a thought. For me, in a 13-0 match, advantage is over and done. Frankly, nothing good is going to happen in any game at 13-0. Our adult league actually cut its mercy rule from a 10 goal differential to 7 at the request of our referee group. I think it made a difference cleaning up nonsense. And for me personally if you get up by 6 and start toying with the other team I am quietly in the Captain's ear. Mind you this is adult league. Rec/Comp/HS is different.
This is really great point. This is my first year doing this indoor league so I never thought about mercy rule stuff. It's a 50 minute game so it's not all that often the score gets driven up this high regardless. Would you say that you're really toying with the other team if you're just playing 100% all the way through the clock? To me, it's one thing if you start just throwing junk long balls and trying bicycle kicks and stuff versus just playing your game.
I think you need to be very attentive. Five minutes to go in a blowout is a dangerous time with men. And yes, some players will take offense if you are still playing as hard at that point as you were at the start. You proved your superiority at 10-0. Do you really need to keep pounding it in? In kids games we encourage sportsmanship when the game is lopsided. Just because you can score at will doesn't mean you should.
You are correct. Forest fires, and particularly one started by teenagers throwing fireworks, were so bad that it was unhealthy to be running around outside. We lost two days when there were no games played in the entire state and this particular game was on the next day. The smell of a wood fire was there from the beginning and it got worse as the evening wore on. About the 64th minute, a school administrator called me over and said that the school district was stopping all games because the air quality index had deteriorated to the point that it was no longer safe to be breathing the outside air.
Toying around for me is you are clearly the better team, up 6-0 or 7-1 half way through the match, passing point to point and get an open look at the goal and just turn and pass it back out to avoid scoring. That invariably hacks off the team that is down, they get mouthy at the team that they percieve (sometimes correctly) is sandbagging and playing down. Next thing you know they go from mouthy to retaliation.
Our O-58 division players are old enough and fat enough that they KNOW they can't do it like they used to anymore. But every now and then, an O-50 game has issues. In this case, there was nothing going on in the game. If memory serves, we'd had about five fouls in the game, no cards. Corner kick to the Anglo team, so one of their players goes to pick up the ball that was still close to the goal line. Korean team player takes exception to that (why? haven't a clue), grabs the ball and doesn't want to give it to the Anglo guy. I start to whistle but before I can even finish my stutter whistle, they're on the ground, wrestling each other, no real punching that I remember, and all of the other players are trying to pull them apart, which only resulted in guys from one team objecting to the efforts of guys from the other team, etc. I got in there and separated the combatants, let them lose some of the adrenalin, at least I thought, before displaying the red card. This field is completely surrounded by a high fence with only one gate. I waited until the bad boys were headed out the gate, as the players from each team apologized to the other team for their teammate's behavior. But the two bad boys started yelling at each other in the parking lot, which only got their teammates to go to "help" them. When some guys who were in the game left the field to go join the confrontation, I terminated the game. The remaining players were now apologizing to me for their teammates' behavior and I told them, "Guys, we're too old to be doing this kind of stuff."
O-50 fight in the parking lot... man I feel like I am missing out on life a bit. I do get pissed off and yell when playing call of duty sometimes though. Maybe I need to get my testosterone level checked.
Last night I did a O50 indoor game. Two teams with a mixed bag of talent and ability. At one point a player who is slightly round and about 5'5 is running shoulder to shoulder in a diagonal away from goal with a defender who is muscular with a beer belly and about 6'2. The 5'5 guy tries to turn toward a goal for a shot or a pass and is obviously laid out by the big guy. There is no foul because he put himself in that position but I blow a whistle anyway to make sure he is OK. He starts screaming that he got fouled and I tell him "What did you expect when you tried to cut off a train." Everyone of the field busted out in laughter, but this guy was livid. After that he tried to go after teh 6'2 guy couple of times. On the first one he tried a shoulder to shoulder check and ended up on his ass. I told him to knock if off but he tried it again with even more force and away from play. At that point I showed him a Blue card to cool off. He still would not let it go and once his penalty was over on the next opportunity he went after the big guy once more and subsequently earned another blue. His teammates tired to calm him down but he was not having it. So I asked him to leave without actually showing a Red card. After he was gone we had a nice and peaceful game. I know most of these guys except I did not recognize the 5'5 person.
This story weirdly reminds me of our mens open league. We have some of the U15/16 club teams that play in the mens league and they always get WAY in over their head. They try to go toe-to-toe with full grown African men and they just get wrecked every single time. They always look at you for fouls but once you look at them with that "really dude... You just tried to muscle a guy twice your age and wayyyy stronger than you" and then they look at you with this *sigh* yeah..... you're right.
Shouldn't that be hip to shoulder? Great story though. Not untypical of these fellows with the "little-man syndrome" especially after a few beers. I bet he was driving an F-350 diesel dually with elephant bars! PH
I did an adult tournament that had some U-17/U-18 age boys' teams in the top division. One of those teams is playing a Latino team. One of the Latino players, in midfield, reaches out his foot at waist height and flicks the ball back over his head to a teammate. I knew the player and I knew that he had the skills to do this without actually endangering anybody. A somewhat nearby teenager loudly says, "High kick, ref!!" I jogged by him and said, out of the side of my mouth, "You aren't in high school anymore, kid." Later that day, I had a second game with the same youth team. The player from the first game makes sure to tell me before the game, "Ref, these guys [pointing to the other team] ARE in high school." "Duly noted."
You gotta LOVE any time a player/coach/parent points out size/age differences. "Ref that's not a foul just because he's bigger/smaller/older". "Really?! Thanks for the info!"
I actually understand that comment. Having been a big kid (tall, but not bulky), having a big kid (and watching him in both soccer and hoops), and having coached big kids (and small kids), it is a simple fact that big kids do get called for fouls they haven't committed simply because they are bigger. Obviously, the better/more experienced the referee, the less those calls get made. But I have observed far too many plays in which a small player flings himself (or herself) at a larger player who is simply running--and the ref sees the small player fall down and calls a foul on the big player. And having seen it actually happening, the coach (and the player) become likely to excpec that is what happened on all calls where they can't see the actual foul. I have said to big players (and their coaches), "I don't doubt that you get fouls called on you because you're big, but that wasn't one. What you did was . . . " (There is also the related issue that sometimes the same behavior may be trifling when done by the small player to the big player (because it is relatively easy for the big player to just keep going), but not trifling when done by the bigger player to the smaller (because the mass difference means it has a significant effect on the smaller player). Especially at lower levels, we need to be conscious of what the smaller players are doing and really evaluate if it is trifling--because it may not be as it builds up over time and creates frustration in the big player being nipped at all the time.)