I'm usually aggressive aggressive when it comes to that sort of thing. Wear what you want, I'll wear what I want, or you don't need me.
Oh right, I’ve heard of that, though never seen it. My mind went straight to "ARs with whistles" which of course didn’t compute.
That’s what this is. It’s three refs in the traditional placement. All have a whistle. If you do NFHS there is a description in the back of the book.
Here's a video explaining the three whistle system. However, I believe that in PA that add one further wrinkle in that the three referees change position during the game. CR becomes Side Ref 1, Side Ref 1 becomes Side Ref 2, and Side Ref 2 becomes CR about a 1/3rd of the way through the game.
There is still a USSF assessor in my area that lives and dies by sleeve length. When I try to point out that is outdated and there are professional referees that wear different sleeve lengths in games, he tells me, "When you do an MLS game, then you wear different sleeve length!"
Here's a post of mine from an aptly named thread on the DDS https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/the-dreaded-double-dual.2105273/page-2#post-38009244
About 4-5 years ago, we had a similar situation, but it was a Section 2 Final. Class AA girls. Basically the two best teams that meet every year. White team shows up wearing the pink socks. Green team all in green. Green coach protests. Protest is upheld by refs and section officials. Parents are dispatched to the closest mall/Dicks 15 miles away. Girls are reaching into their bags looking for any white socks they can find. Even the green team players (many who play club soccer with the white players and are friends with one another) are looking for white socks. Some time later, all players now had white socks and the match was played. White won.
My games are sufficiently low-level that I’ve seldom encountered assessors and have never heard complaints about my long sleeves. I long ago planned my response should the subject ever come up: “Sorry, but my dermatologist outranks you. After she sliced a chunk of skin off my arm in 2007, she told me never to wear short sleeves.”
I'm glad we weren't assessed on this one. In Alabama we have these two high school jerseys only. Home (red) keeper had a jersey close to the green color and the visiting (white) keeper had a jersey close to the orange color. My partner insisted we go with OSI black. "What if the players get confused?" Um, I'm not going to be anywhere near either keeper for anyone to be confused. I couldn't talk him out of it. We went with black.
Sometimes, I miss the days when I first started and the only color we had was the old all-black with white colors. There was never a debate about what color to wear. I say "sometimes" because then there will be a 90 degree, hot sunny day and I am glad we don't have to wear all-black.
That’s then you respond. And when you’re high enough in US Soccer to be able to set such a policy of matching sleeve length I’ll comply. Could be worse. You could have this POS:
If the worst thing the assessor has to talk about is your sleeves, you've probably had a pretty good game.
Maybe I started later than you did, but my fuschia saw a lot of summer use. Almost all my games 20-25 years ago were solo, though, so I wouldn’t have had debates over shirt color.
It’s not even about looking bad. It’s terrible quality. It’s basically designed to be used in an air conditioned gym. Thick material, bad cut, and poorly constructed. The breast pockets aren’t even sewn to the shirt, they just flop loose inside the chest. But it’s the same manufacturer as the officials for The SEC, and coincidentally UK is also in the SEC.
You could have also told your partner that there is nothing in the NFHS rules that say you need to have a different color from the keepers. That's just a FIFA/IFAB thing. Both NFHS and NCAA say that contrasting with the keepers isn't an issue.
The first time I wore the fuschia, it was an adult women's game. Several of the women came over, before the game, to admire the shirt and asked if they could touch it. I let them. I later bought a Diadora fuschia that I liked but it was clearly different from the regular OSI/USSF fuschia, so I only wore it on solo games.
"Protest is upheld by refs and section officials." NFHS 4.1.1 Situation G. Team A arrives at the game site to play Team B and the officials observe (a) Team A does not have numbers on the jerseys....Ruling: (a) Team A must correct uniform problems if possible. If it is not possible for them to correct the problem, the game shall be played. The referee shall report the situation to the state association."
5.1.3 Situation: (a) The officials arrive at the game with a shirt that matches the goalkeeper of one of the teams, but not the field players.....Ruling: (a) Legal." Or, as I've said, more than once, if I'm in there making saves, we've got a bigger problem than what color shirt I'm wearing.
When I was playing as a youth (14U?), the league issued GK shirt I had was solid black, which was the only color refs wore back then. A PK was called on our team, and I was going into goal to defend it. Got the shirt, put on the gloves, got in the goal. And the refs decide that isn't OK. I can't fit into the one the other GK was wearing. So, while the PK taker stands around waiting, we're scurrying around to find something I could wear that would satisfy the refs. I don't recall what we finally found--might have been my dad's jacket. The iced kicker missed the goal completely. Something in there about trees and forests . . .