I've come to suspect that these fitness devices sense the "elevation gain" from every time we raise our arms to signal a throw in, offside, or I/DFK. My thinking is that these are not "normal" movements an everyday person makes that the algorithm can detect/differentiate and so it assumes some amount of elevation gain. Especially because, if a "normal" movement, you wouldn't leave the arm up for 10-30 seconds.
I think my Garmin is a little generous on the game mileage it gives me too – but I would never tell myself that.
Horrible, awful, low-level U-14B match last night. One team is the only team of an area. They have a few decent players. The other team is the third team of a larger town, so any player with decent skills is on the higher two teams. Anyway, big-town team is just bad. Attackers and MFers stay high up the field, don't track back. Defenders are left to their own with maybe one midfielder and they are just nagging each other to 'play defense.' Finally, after the 4th goal, before the kick-off, I hear them nagging at each other (again). Blow the whistle tell the kick off to hold it a second and then announce to their entire team, "sportsmanship applies to your teammates as well as your opponents. I am not going to take anymore complaining about your teammates." At least I got some peace and quiet for the last 15 minutes. Oh, and a couple of their parents thanked me on the way out.
As my wife and I are midway through rewatching Deadwood, "MFers" translated differently, and I thought "Wow, he really didn't like that team."
Wow, I had a very similar situation happen last night. Home team was getting beat 4-0, and teammates were openly yelling at each other. I told the players, "Sportsmanship applies to your teammates just like it does to the opponents and referees." A couple of "Sorry, sir" remarks from the players, and we completed the game without incident. I also forgot to mention that I got to give my "Michael Oliver advantage/goal" signal last night as well. Attacker clean on goal and chips the ball over the goalkeeper near the top of the area. As the ball goes over the keeper, he contacts the attacker. It's a foul, and the ball goes into the goal. No reason to caution (he fouled, but he obviously didn't deny a goal-scoring opportunity since the ball was clearly going into the goal), but I did give an advantage signal (didn't call "play on" as the ball was clearly rolling to the goal) and then held the advantage signal as I turned to the center circle. I then blew the whistle and stopped the clock. That let everyone know I did consider the play a foul but was obviously giving the advantage of a goal. I've always wanted to have a chance to give that signal/mechanic since I thought it looked great when Oliver did it in a Premier League game.
Yes this. It's maybe my favorite TV show of all time, with Justified running a close second. But the good news, and the reason we are re-binge-watching, is they've made a let's-give-the-bereft-fans-closure movie with the original cast, which airs (is that still a word, airs?) very soon, like next week or the week after. p.s. I dreamed the other night that I was in a Constitutional Law class, and the professor was Ian McShane. p.p.s. If you do go back and rewatch, do it with the closed captions on. The dialog is Shakespearean, and you miss a lot of it in passing. p.p.p.s. May 31 on HBO.
Wrapping up my rec league season (U8) before I get certified in July/August and start doing more in the Fall... Just did 3 group-stage games and after the last game, my Rec Director says: "Hey gaolin, what are you doing at 2:30 later today?" "...you mean..." "Yup, you're doing a final of an U8 bracket. Last game of the season actually." This is people. Time to shine. But first... some H20 and food. (Apparently one of the refs couldn't do final. Not enough time commitment, hence why he asked me.)
With college done, the college age referees are out of town, leaving older guys like me to pick up the slack. Ten of my 23 rec games this season happened this week. Today, Rec U10B. Last of the group stage. Blue needs a win to advance to the championship game. Green only needs a tie to advance. Most of our rec referees are high school & college students. Apparently not many fouls are called. I am calling the obvious pushing and grabbing fouls. Lots of them. Both teams are grabbing jerseys and extended arm pushing to displace opponents off the ball, and I am blowing the whistle. Some parents are thanking me for calling such fouls when "no one else will." But I'm not doing enough. Sometimes when a defender pushes an attacker and the attacker keeps control of the ball, dribbling it downfield, the parents are yelling for me to call the foul. My advantage signal is foreign to them. It finally got to a point where Blue 10 is shoved quite hard in the back near the center circle. The ball goes to Blue 7 between the buildout line (USSF teams use it but this rec league doesn't) and the PA. Blue 7 has a one on one with the keeper but he just stands there and says "You're not going to call that foul?" The defense slows up and seems to wait for my response. I said "You have the ball with no one in front of you. You want to play on or call the foul letting their defense set up a wall?" The light goes on and he takes a shot, which goes out for a goal kick. I then explain to everyone "This is why I don't call every push. If he would have kept playing instead of talking to me, he might have scored." Afterward a few parents thanked me for doing a good job. Others said I needed to call every foul, no matter what. I suggested to them to contact the league director and ask him how to be a referee. "You folks are younger, in better shape and obviously know more about the rules than I do. We need all the help we can get because an old, fat guy like me is having to referee." I told the director to expect a huge amount of email from parents wanting to be referees.
Had a high quality U-15B match yesterday. One of those days when you can turn away a bit to get into position and not have to worry that one team or the other will screw up the predictabilty of what will happen next. 80 minutes, covered 5 miles despite it suddenly being 85 degrees and sunny after a cold, wet spring where I haven't done a match over 70 degrees yet this season. Both teams had a couple players I used to coach. Good to know I can piss them off with calls/non-calls. At least their folks were happy with my day Anyway, had one of those happy moments for that advantage call near midfield that suddenly leads to the 1v1 breakaway pass. Would have been perfection had it ended with the goal, but the damn GK clipped the attacker's cleat with his hand resulting in a PK and YC. PK was converted.
I was invited to President's Cup Regional in Round Rock, TX after the President's Cup finals weekend. Honestly I'm happy to go and be seen, but I had really been hoping to gain a Regional Championships invite. After being told two weeks ago in an assessment on an O30 game that I was taking too much risk getting forward, I was told that I was reacting to play in my PC games this weekend. I guess I'm not very good at finding that happy medium. Mentally, I was thinking that most of the passes did not reach the intended target so if I'm leading the play, I'm in a bad position because the ball probably won't get there. Now I'm kicking myself for not saying, F it, I'll be where they ball should be then work too hard to recover when it doesn't get there.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. You can't ref an O30 match the same as a President's Cup match. It's an apples to oranges comparison.
I got a new ref gift/toy this past weekend. Our state (Kentucky) recently announced a partner ship with TorrX Smart Ball Pumps. As part of this partnership, the state association gave a few select referees (myself included) a free pump.
Congratulations! TorrX pumps are a virus - once someone sees you using one, they get one for themselves. They're big up here in the PNW, I think at least partly because the company is here. I bought one for myself after debating it for a while with a referee colleague, and then we had a game where I was unexpectedly "upgraded" on a college match from AR to CR when the CR couldn't be there - decided it was a good use of found money!
This is the best device ever. When I use it, everyone wants one. I got it mainly for HS where we get handed 5 game balls and most are woefully under inflated. I am one of those Type A guys who want it right, and I don’t leave it up to the HS coach who delegates to the assistant who delegates it to someone else. It takes less than 20 seconds to get the right inflation per ball.
I had an 8 AM match on Sunday morning as our usual site was being used for State Cup Finals. Then, I got a text from a family member saying that our niece was playing in one of the finals! I had never been to that facility without being in costume! And, I hadn’t sat with parents at a match in over five years! Nothing has changed! I just had to realize that it’s their bias speaking, and not their actual knowledge of the game. Watching from the bleachers is really strange if you haven’t done it in a while. I had my wife sitting next to me, and I was able to whisper to her (and only her) what was going on on the field. The Referee, who I did not know, was being assessed. I knew that because I knew the assessor. I said hello to the assessor after the match, And did not ask about anything I saw on the match. It was a u18/19 (?) which turned one sided after several defensive lapses by “my” team in the second half. I know nothing of how assessors work, but I was wondering how a Match critical incident that I thought was missed in a 1-1 game be looked upon when the final score was 6-1. Here’s what transpired. With about 6-7 minutes to go in first half, “my” team gets a thru ball to their attacker, ‘keeper races out of the area to confront the breakaway, attacker looks to go around the ‘keeper who holds her with a waist grab and allows the defenders to retrieve the ball. I thought it was DOGSO-F outside the area, DFK and red card. No foul called at all. I thought it was an obvious hold and well within his parameters for fouls in the match at that point. If the assessor agreed, does the final score make a difference? “My” team was awful in the second half, and might not have won against 10 opponents. Also, I can safely go another 5-10 years without sitting with the parents again.
No doubt. A fellow adult ref showed his off at his U10 rec match two weeks ago. He uses his full time job to fund his referee paraphernalia habit. However, like you said, now I want one specifically for HS game balls.
The score at the time certainly makes a difference in that. How are we to know that the one team, losing their GK, might not have put their top field player into goal for the remainder? How are we to know how having to take a player off might have affected them? Especially when the score is 1-1.