Recently on a game we had to dismiss a fan (1 of 6 total fans on the sideline!) on an amateur match. Through out the match she slowly escalated from expressing her displeasure at our calls (which I personally don't generally have a problem with coming from fans) to personal abusive comments about the looks of the crew. At this point we ask her to leave. Her response to this is to threaten us with sexual harassment charges for "for looking at her". The club president comes over on his golf cart to escort her to the parking lot for us. After about 6 minutes he is finally able to remove her. Once getting to the parking lot, we presume she did actually call the police as several police cars did show up and her husband who was still spectating said their gonna get you now. And he left to go talk to the police. I presume from there the police laid the reality on the both of them. When the husband came back later he said nothing other than a statement directed at another fan that he thought the referees had to give warnings before dismissing fans. Which brings me to my question would you have warned the fan first? Prior to her removal we did not give any fan any verbal communication, but also don't believe verbal communication is all that beneficial to have with fans since there is plenty of videos on YouTube of it not working and resulting it in the fan needing to be dismissed anyways as they try argue their way out of a warning. After the game I also grabbed the names and numbers of two fans from the other team who were all to eager to provide the information they had witnessed.
Like players, sometimes they can have warnings and sometimes they just have to face the consequences. You get the big bucks for knowing the difference. If the club president was handy for removing her, you should have gone through him in the first place. Do your best to not interact directly with misbehaving fans.
Spectators have no privileges at a match, particularly one that does not charge admission. They are not a required element for the match to be played. A coach can be dismissed without going through ask/tell, players can receive straight red cards, and certainly spectators can be asked to leave without warning. I have dismissed fans without warning and I have also issued warnings to both individuals and to sidelines as a whole - it just depends on what is said and the nature of the match. You *should* go through the coach when dealing with spectators. I have dealt with fans directly and so far I haven't had it blow up in my face, but I have sometimes used the coaches to issue warnings and in one case to remove someone.
I strongly recommend that you not deal directly with spectators. Go through the captain/coach/manager and don't restart the game until the problem is gone. Our state law does allow a sports official to require a person (spectator, coach, player) to leave even a public park, which police will enforce with a trespassing citation. YMMV. So maybe you should have called the police yourself.
Until he came over, we actually didn't know there were any administrators around at the complex or we would have chosen that route. There normally isn't.
I have not yet had an issue with a spectator that I felt needed getting them tossed without a warning, and I have never had to toss a spectator for not knocking off the garbage. But I did once have a spectator get up and leave as I walked across the field to have a word with her (the coach chickened out, so I did it myself.) She was gone before I got to the other side. But I can envision a scenario where a major point would need to be made by tossing the creep without any sort of warning.
"Coach, you deal with it or this game is over." (Yes, unfortunately I did have to terminate a U12G rec game when the coach wouldn't deal with it. I was totally backed up by the league.)
One of the biggest Tournament organizers in New Jersey plays a fair amount of matches on the grounds of Ft. Dix. The military police are the ones who come to handle the fan/referee disputes. A few years ago, I was on an adjoining field and got to witness a parent taken away in handcuffs to spend the night in the stockade. He had started in on a young AR. Justice.
Way to make your kid proud! I'm trying to imagine him calling his wife: "you'll have to pick Zach up from his game"..... "I'm in the stockade at Ft Dix"..... "never mind how i got here"
Speaking of working games on military installations, I do it often. On the base where I work is the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security and Cooperation (Think Manuel Noriego and School of the Americas). I was doing a couple of U-littles on the base last night. There was one little kid that was relatively good and fast. As he was dribbling to the corner, a defender gave him a good whack, although it was not deliberate. Nothing in those games normally is. It's pretty ugly soccer skill wise. The kid stayed down for a few seconds, and his dad went to see to him spouting some not very nice things about my parentage in Spanish. I called the coach over and told him the guy had just cussed me out in Spanish and he had to go. The coach explained to me that the gentleman was a high ranking officer from another country. Much higher ranking than the coach who was US Army. The coach explained that, not only did he not speak English, if he told him to leave there would be repercussions. There was less than five minutes left in the game, so I decided it wasn't worth the hassle.
Not a spectator but... a colleague was doing a men's league game, one Hispanic team, one Anglo. Something was going on a bit up field from the referee and a Hispanic player near him asks, "Que pasa?" An Anglo player nearby says to the referee, "Did you hear that, ref? He's cussing you out in Spanish!"
I've been married to a Latina (Panamanian) for thirty-two years. Believe me, I know when I'm getting cussed out in Spanish.
You don't necessarily have to know much vocabulary. A lot of times you can simply tell by the tone of voice. Mi esposa es una maestra de español.
Sigh....yes....1984 was good...my sons graduated from High School that year. Tuition is a great way to keep slim!
You should have gone the private school route. When my oldest went to college last year my tuition costs went down!