Best Story of the WEEK 2021

Discussion in 'Referee' started by IASocFan, Jan 1, 2021.

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  1. Pittsburgh Ref

    Pittsburgh Ref Member+

    Oct 7, 2014
    da 'Burgh
    Best story of my week...when a Covid vaccine card goes through the wash, it's still legible.

    YMMV, do not attempt, trained driver on closed course
     
    OldRetiredCoach, dadman and seattlebeach repped this.
  2. davidjd

    davidjd Member+

    Jun 30, 2000
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The nurse advised us to take a picture of it and keep it on our cell phone. Doesn't seem any downside in that.
     
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  3. ptref

    ptref Member

    Manchester United
    United States
    Aug 5, 2015
    Bowling Green, KY
    Club:
    Manchester United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I will be attending the Midwest Regional Championship in St Louis in the role of ref coach/mentor and also serving as the head of our state delegation.
     
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  4. Pittsburgh Ref

    Pittsburgh Ref Member+

    Oct 7, 2014
    da 'Burgh
    I discovered it had been washed when looking for it to do precisely that. Little Impressionistic now but it's still art.
     
    dadman repped this.
  5. Beau Dure

    Beau Dure Member+

    May 31, 2000
    Vienna, VA
    U-11 boys rec league.

    I've been to this field at least 100 times as a coach, parent and ref. It's a large middle school field used mainly for its side-by-side small-sided fields. The parking lot is therefore behind the goals on one side, and there's a small grass area where conventional practice is to let parents sit as long as they're not up interfering with play. On the far side, the turf goes on and on, theoretically as part of a baseball field but really a convenient warm-up area.

    Second half: I noticed a guy standing a few feet from the post at the FAR side. I asked him to move. He picked up his bag and moved about five yards. No, you need to be in the technical area, I said, thinking he was a coach. The nearby coaches inform me he's very much not with them. (Turns out he was with the other team.)

    After a couple of repetitions, I finally get him a few yards away from the corner flag. At the time, I figured he must have been a coach on one of the teams warming up for the next game who must have known a player in this game and figured he'd offer some advice, and I figured it wasn't worthwhile to waste any more game time on this. He wasn't a problem for the rest of the game.

    After the game, he comes up and says, "I want to apologize." Unfortunately, everything he said after that undercut the whole notion of "apology."

    He starts by pointing to the parking-lot side and the presence of parents there. "Why didn't you make them move?" I said the reality of the field is that parents sit there.

    "So if the field was flipped, I would've been OK?"

    "No, because they're not right up at the goal and coaching."

    "I can't come up and cheer for my son?"

    (By this point, we've established that he's a parent, not a coach. Sort of. We'll get to it.)

    "You can't come right up here."

    "But I wasn't behind the goal."

    (In the literal sense, as in standing directly behind the net, no. But he was a few feet from the post.)

    Somewhere in all this, he accuses me of being on a power trip and tosses in the fact that he was in the military for 30 years, though I'm not sure what point he was trying to make with the latter.

    I've had postgame conversations with coaches in which I've second-guessed my composure, and I've had the occasional exchange with a parent in which I should've just feigned deafness or offered a calming word and moved on. I feel pretty good about this one. I remained calm.

    At this point, I pulled out my notebook and asked for his name.

    "I don't have to give you my name!" he yells.

    So that was about it.

    But unfortunately for him, his team's coach knows his name. That coach was clearly embarrassed and said, "Well, he helps out at practice sometimes, but he's not any sort of official volunteer."

    I reassured him that this wasn't his fault.

    Then, for the first time ever, I used the "report" box when inputting the game score in our club's management system.
     
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  6. dadman

    dadman Yo soy un papa

    DC United
    United States
    Apr 13, 2001
    Reston, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    ^^^

    Good on ya, Beau. :thumbsup:
     
  7. kruck

    kruck Member+

    Jan 12, 2008
    Houston, TX
    Club:
    SV Werder Bremen
    A team got banned from the highest division of our local adult mens league (fairly good level, mostly ex-college, ex-youth national teamer's, some former pro's sprinkled in) because one of the players/managers/someone associated with the team at the field flashed a gun in his waistband at some point (I think postgame).

    I wasn't there. I initially heard about it yesterday while refereeing and then was coincidentally reffing with one of the AR's who worked the game today. He was telling me about it. Crazy.
     
  8. cleansheetbsc

    cleansheetbsc Member+

    Mar 17, 2004
    Club:
    --other--
    What? The 2A ends at a soccer field? C'mon. People died for these freedoms.
     
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  9. Law5

    Law5 Member+

    Mar 24, 2005
    Beaverton OR
    We had an unaffiliated tournament, promoted by someone representing themselves as acting on behalf of a foreign government's local counsel. There was widespread skepticism among the soccer community about this, but the local park district felt that they had to approve the use because there was a foreign government asking for this, equity, inclusion, yahda, yahda, yahda. We do have some unaffiliated ethnic leagues and don't have any problem with them but this was operating outside that sphere too.

    The tournament ended early when the police were called after a player decided that he had been insulted by an opponent and his solution to the insult was to pull a gun from his bag. The parks department people who had little actual exposure to adult soccer were shocked, shocked, I tell you, that something like that would happen. We haven't heard of anyone from that foreign entity trying to organize more soccer games.
     
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  10. davidjd

    davidjd Member+

    Jun 30, 2000
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Makes the player who went to the sideline and found a lead pipe to chase one of his opponents around with during a game I lined (yes, lined back then, not ARed) back in the day seem tame.

    I'm a bit surprised at the level of the players/competition you say it occurred in though.
     
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  11. davidjd

    davidjd Member+

    Jun 30, 2000
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    BUT now the city sees 'soccer' as a problem even though it was their vetting process of 'some organization' which was the closer issue. (In the end it may not be either of those things and just a rogue player which is the really unfortunate part.)
     
  12. Gary V

    Gary V Member+

    Feb 4, 2003
    SE Mich.
    Why does this sound like the next thing they ask for will be help in importing some deceased relative's gold hoard?
     
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  13. soccerref69420

    soccerref69420 Member+

    President of the Antonio Miguel Mateu Lahoz fan cub
    Mar 14, 2020
    Nat'l Team:
    Korea DPR
    #463 soccerref69420, May 10, 2021
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
    Doing a U17 NPL girls match yesterday. Girl asks me during match if there can be offside on a goal kick and before I can answer her nearby teammate (who had been annoying all match with complaining and jawing) immediately says “yes there’s offside on goal kicks”

    told her “hey, that’s great, you should take a ref class”. she arrogantly says “No thanks, I know the rules already” and I said “no, because that’s wrong”. She told me that I was wrong and that I should read the rules before reffing another game then play restarted

    End of game, I get my phone and the IFAB app to law 11. Go over to the bench and pull her Aside, “hey I’m reading the rules before my next game like you told me, what does this rule say?”

    she reads

    There is no offside offence if a player receives the ball directly from:
    • a goal kick

    and says huh... oops

    then I post match cautioned her for dissent. Inb4 “I can’t caution after restart”, a bloo bloo, cautions don’t carry over anyway, wanted to prove a point
     
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  14. voiceoflg

    voiceoflg Member+

    Dec 8, 2005
    I once got valuable advice that I usually heed in a lot of things in life. "Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it." Umbrellas, gas in the tank...AR flags. Well, I didn't listen to that voice in my head this one time. U13 rec dual. The assignor told me it was a dual. So I left the flags at home. My partner was a 14 year old young lady who had previously only done U8 without keepers. OK, I am basically going to do this alone but help mentor her as the game goes on.

    Five minutes before the start of the match, the president of our high school association shows up and says he is centering to help mentor. OK. He does not have flags because he is the center and ARs are supposed to have their own. The young girl doesn't own flags. And I left mine at home thinking this would be a dual. The parks and rec employees had a flag they had in lost and found. So we hand it to the youngster and made her AR1 to get used to flag mechanics and handle subs. I used my arms and voice.

    Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway said you have to improvise, adapt and overcome. But it is better to have your flags and not need them than to need them and not have them.
     
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  15. refinDC

    refinDC Member

    Aug 7, 2012
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Similar situation a few years ago in what may have been same group playing on opposite side of the country - players from one team losing by a lot got in fist fight with teammates at half time. Given the nature of this event, I wasn't going to make it worse with red cards, so looked the other way and allowed halftime to drag on awhile to let things cool off, which was working, until......

    The team already up something like 9-0 starts complaining to me that they need the game to start so they can run the goal differential up even more (games were scheduled back to back so I was going to start to run the clock)! I point out that they may not want the other team out there that fast since they might get hurt, and they say ok, go get the organizer, and organizer tells me to play the full 45 (or was it 40)....

    Only one SFP red in the second half if I remember correctly, so success?
     
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  16. DefRef

    DefRef Member

    Jul 3, 2017
    Storrs CT
    Opening week for my favorite local ethnic league that I assign for. This is the league where 100% of players yell on every foul. Half because it happened and half because you called it.

    I am AR1 (assigned ref had his 2nd covid shot the day before and had a bad reaction ) and play is typical - hard, but not dirty. Striker on red can't get past defender to get at ball and likely intentionally fouled the defender. Defender goes down and comes up with ball which he throws full force at striker 5 feet away. Striker punches, defender punches back, both teams start yelling and then GK comes flying in to land a few punches on striker (turned out he was defenders brother).

    This is first brawl I have ever seen (as a ref) and I was sure it was going to turn into full blown melee. 22 yr old CR is whaling on the whistle and I am slowly (very slowly) coming onto the field with my book out writing down numbers. Amazingly, it stopped almost immediately and teammates got everyone separated and now they want to yell at us refs about this that and the other. We have a quick chat and RC the 3 fighters and resume play 10v9.

    We finish game with no further issues and those were the only cards in the game.

    Oh, and my 21 yr old son decided to come back to reffing after taking 2 years off. And he was AR2. Welcome back!
     
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  17. frankieboylampard

    Mar 7, 2016
    USA
    Club:
    Chelsea FC
    Nat'l Team:
    Spain
    I always have flags in my trunk of my car. I make the ARs who need them run to my trunk to get them. Lol
     
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  18. Dayton Ref

    Dayton Ref Member+

    May 3, 2012
    Houston, TX
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    I "heard" the referee supplemental was close to 2 pages and one of the AR's supplemental was about 1.5 pages single spaced.
     
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  19. ilyazhito

    ilyazhito Member

    Manchester United
    Spain
    Feb 9, 2021
    Wow, that must have been really messed up.
     
  20. socal lurker

    socal lurker Member+

    May 30, 2009
    Huh. I just never take them out of the bag and never have to think about them . . .
     
  21. voiceoflg

    voiceoflg Member+

    Dec 8, 2005
    Same, except for local rec (non-USSF) we have a t-shirt we wear. So I don't bring the bag. Just a ref wallet, coin and whistle in my pockets. I don't usually bring the whole works like I do USSF/NFHS games and tournaments. Maybe I should.
     
  22. El Rayo Californiano

    Feb 3, 2014
    When I took the entry-level course, the instructors said traditionally the center provides flags.

    In any event, my trunk is like frankieboylampard's trunk.
     
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  23. Gary V

    Gary V Member+

    Feb 4, 2003
    SE Mich.
    Never give your good flags to a club AR.

    And beware of your assigned AR's - if they don't have flags, is it because they broke theirs?
     
  24. RefGil

    RefGil Member

    Dec 10, 2010
    One of the NCAA-D3 conferences I did games for this spring specifically told us that each AR must bring his/her own flag, due to the 'Rona. Now that's college, where I assume everyone on the crew had a trunkful of gear, but...
     
  25. kruck

    kruck Member+

    Jan 12, 2008
    Houston, TX
    Club:
    SV Werder Bremen
    Sounds like Bill
     

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