This is just a general thread, for general comments, thoughts and maybe experiences if you've experienced things like this, but I wanted to share what is going on in my home country which is very worrysome and my thoughts about all of this and officiating here in the US. Recently, there has been a large number of high-profile incidents in the lower leagues of Poland where referees in the lower leagues of play have been assaulted, at times by players themselves. Recently, a 17 year old and an 18 year old were attacked and punched by players in the 4th and 5th division. Happened in the dressing room and on the way back from the field, and one referee was targeted TWO WEEKS after a game, his car destroyed and severely beat up - by two players from a game aided by a couple of thugs friends. Then there are things like this. A game with 5 red cards, game over, 4th division of soccer: Things like that make me just grateful that here, in the US we have a pretty sterile environment for most games, have pretty decent legal protection (as we are considered officials) and have an opportunity to officiate in pretty safe places - plenty of youth games, tournaments, high school is usually well secured. In Poland, it's the adult amateur games where you get to do most of your officiating as there isn't as many youth games - youth teams are just youth sections of professional clubs, so they have those regular leagues and you have to do a lot more adult stuff at lower levels like this. I do not think I would enjoy officiating as much as I do if I had to worry about my health or see games like the one in the link above (which are not all that rare, either): players coming out there with no speed, skill, technique, and no will to play, but a ton of aggression.
I'm not saying Blue is innocent, but watch the Red players on half of the calls. I swear there is minimal contact.
I've done that game, in the Detroit MBB/Ethnic league. I think it was the Greeks against the Albanians. Sometimes, they just don't want to play today.