When I first started refereeing, I bought the black and yellow pinstripes, because that's all they had at the soccer store. Since I only wore that black pinstripe jersey 4 or 5 times before they updated the style to the wider pinstripes, I never bought the old-new black jersey. And with the current generation of jerseys, I didn't buy the black. Did a pair of MBB D1 games the other weekend. CR of the first game wanted to wear black, so I got to rock the old-old-style black jersey (as opposed to the old-old-old style black with white collar and cuffs). And yes, I dug a pair of egg socks out of my bag and wore those as well.
I may have told this story before, but here is my black jersey story. It was in the mid-2010s, and I was AR1 for a DIII women's game in late October. The crew got to the field about an hour before the game. We were inspecting the field when one of the players came up to us and said that they would be wearing special pink jerseys for breast cancer awareness. When we got back to our locker room, we decided to wear our long sleeve black NIOSA jerseys since none of us wore them regularly. When we went out to the field before the game in our black jerseys, we discovered that their "pink" jerseys were really all-black with pink writing on them. We went back to the referee room and put on our orange jerseys.
I never bought black in the former style. I bought all five colors of the current style (now six). The first year of the current style, the former was grandfathered in. U13 boys in March and it was cold. Red vs. neon yellowish green and the only long sleeve I have is yellow and green. The center said "we'll wear black. Your under armour will make it look like you are wearing long sleeves." I tear open the new black I have as he put on the older black. He looks at me, points to his jersey and says "You don't have this?" Nope. He says "You know we are supposed to match...RIGHT?" AR2 shows up a few minutes later and says "We are wearing black? No problem. I got it." He then pulls out of his bag the old, old black pinstripe shirt. I thought the center was going to have a stroke.
Jeez, he's all twisted up about shirts matching on a U13B match? He needs some perspective. He's lucky to have a full crew at kickoff.
I saw Howard Webb at the Union game last night. Was pre-game and he walked by in the concourse. By the time I realized who it was - he was gone. I would have asked for the selfie!!
Men's O-50 2nd division game Sunday. The worst uniforms I can ever remember seeing. Black, white and pink inverted chevrons. Every time I glanced at one, I thought "Who decided that was a good design?" But they had the most appropriate shirt sponsor I've ever seen in a men's league game. "Physical Therapy Associates."
Over the past weekend I had a situation where I gave 2 stonewall penalties against the same team. First was in the 23rd minute to make the game 1-0. The second was in the 25th minute. The second was always going to be contentious based on timeframe/emotions alone, and I had some significant management to do to set up the second penalty kick restart. I had to manage one specific player, #3 Purple, because he pretty clearly wanted to try and scuff up the penalty spot. He walked away talking some trash, but I didn't want to burn a caution there for management purposes. We had comms on the game and the entire crew discussed how #3 was about to lose his head. Sure enough, the penalty kick was taken and scored, and a mass confrontation started at the top of the penalty area. I see #3 Purple get pushed, hard, in the chest to the ground. Both the 4th and AR1 say over the comms that it looked like #3 instigated the confrontation by either saying something or spitting (they were quite a ways away). I break up the mass con with no other instances of misconduct other than the big push, so I caution the player who pushed #3. He shows me his uniform and there's a huge clump of spittle on his shoulder. Not hard to put two and two together there. If you see someone walk inside with a wet umbrella, you can assume it's raining outside. We send #3 off. The video of the match showed the incident clearly and #3 definitely spat on his opponent. I think this was my first spitting red card in about 15 years of refereeing. Couldn't believe it.
Just saw this old clip. Not exactly related but I wish we could show this to any coaches who try to give us crap for making warming up subs wear bibs/pinnies
Oh, I've seen a very nice pass in a community college game this year that went directly to a teammate who didn't happen to actually be in the game yet. Pinny off because they'd left it at the bench before going to the halfway line.
I wonder who the home team was. Even the ball boys were wearing that color. Steph Curry had a nice pass to the opposing bench last year to an injured player wearing white (Warriors were in white). I believe the NBA has since addressed this.
See, if it was up to me, the pinny would be worn by a sub the ENTIRE time they are off the field, including when they are standing at midfield. Only comes off when the ref finally stops the restart and acknowledges the sub to come on. But that doesn't happen at the pro level, they are at midfield just in regular jersey. To be honest I'm surprised that passes to an OOB pinny-less teammate doesn't happen more often.
In one of the local HS varsity leagues in this area, subs kneel at the halfway line just like they do in basketball. Half the time, I don't see these because I'm looking over their heads.
I feel bad about this one. I was reffing a HS girls state 2nd round playoff game in a dual system. #2 seed vs #9. #2 is a tech school that cleaned up in their league but realistically should have been about 15 or 20. The have a home game and instead of playing on their small crappy grass field, they get the local college turf field. #2 was probably a better team, but they were in far worse shape and really sucking wind. #9 scores a long range goal in the middle of the first half and takes a 1-0 lead into half time. 2 minutes into the 2nd half, #2 has a throw-in and their designated long thrower comes over (for about the 30th time) and I can see she is already gassed. She is about 6'2" and big (not fat), but not used to running all over a turf field. About 5 minutes later, I call obstruction on #9 sweeper who blatantly holds off striker with the ball 10 feet away. Ball is dead center of field about 35 yds out. I stand at the ball, waiting to see who the kicker is and it is the same big girl. I tell her "indirect". She is almost glassy eyed. She says, "huh? indirect? I repeat "indirect" and put my hand up. I turn and see that defense is about 10 yds back and announce loudly "indirect". Still with my hand in the air, I run up to my lead position to watch for offside. I see the kicker talking to her teammate and assumed they are trying to figure out an indirect kick play. And they seem very puzzled about the whole thing. Finally, big girl just takes the kick and shoots right on goal. Shot is just inside the post and the keeper lets it go in. But NOT because she knew it was indirect, but because she thought it would miss! I could tell because she immediately hung her head in dejection. Offense is celebrating like crazy (along with home crowd) and I am standing there, still with my hand in the air as a couple of defenders start to question me about the situation. The clock is already stopped and I run over to my partner who is already moving back for the kick-off. I tell him that this was an indirect kick and he is totally surprised (pay attention much?). I asked him if I somehow missed a touch somewhere and he said no. So, I blast the whistle and wave my arms, yelling "no goal". Got quite a few boos for my efforts. I yell over to home bench about no goal, indirect kick. Got no argument from them (that I heard anyway). Part of the reason I felt bad is I would have liked to see the home team win (they lost 2-0), for a lot of reasons. My son went to school there (graduated 5 yrs ago). I know some of the players and their families. The coach is very well behaved, even though he often disagrees with calls. And if they win, I have a chance at another playoff game. But you gotta call the game correctly and fair and I like to think I do that.
It was a classic obstruction. And very obvious and intentional. Which is a play that I really don't like. But I would never consider calling it a foul for that minimal level of contact. If nothing else, it sets you up when you don't call other similar light contact.
Got you. I read it like the player was actually being held instead of a classic obstruction call. My bad.
I guess this could go in the bad stories thread, but this also works here: I'm 12 matches into my high school regular season and every single match has had at least one foul throw-in.
My favorite foul throw-in story comes from a high school game. It is at a turf stadium with multiple colored lines for various sports. At the coin flip, I remind the captains to tell their players that we are using the yellow lines for the soccer game. During the first half, a player from the home team takes a throw-in, but throws the ball in from the white gridiron football lines that are inside the soccer field. After a whistled for the illegal throw-in, she says, "I don't know which lines we were using." I know that the captains don't often relay all the information to the teams when we talk to them, but the home team should know which lines they are using; it's their stadium after all!
Lines? Freshman game and ball goes out of play. Attacker picks up ball and starts to put it over their head for a throw in. Tweet, tweet, tweet, "Corner Kick!". No response from their coach when I asked if they were really going to do a throw in. Fun game!
I saw that scenario in an MLS game long ago where the team didn't yet have a dedicated stadium. They just let it go.
A big and small local HSBV teams play at each season's end to prep for playoffs. Everyone pretty much knows everyone so of course there's plenty of nonsense to manage. I'm CR, the 1st half ends with multiple cards near the end to settle them and a tied score. 2nd half is pretty much nothing but decent soccer. With 30 secs left in the game, visitors are up by one, but home's attack is advancing along the teams' touchline and they're getting the throw-in's. Ball goes out again to home in front of their bench. As their usual thrower goes to the restart point, home's subs, teammates, and coaches all start screaming frantically at him... He hurriedly throws it... from over and outside of his shoulder... Methinks, "Did I really just see that?!?" He drops his head, teammates drop their heads... [Tweet]... Visitors get the throw and it's game over. Coaches are yapping at him for it. I'm thinking, "Maybe if you weren't screeching in his ear from 2 feet away he would have thrown it effectively like he had been doing all game...."
U8 tournament game. 4v4, no keepers. After an injury, I drop the ball to White 23 who dribbles it up field maybe 10 yards, then takes a shot on goal. The ball goes in the net unimpeded. I let everyone know you can't score directly off a drop ball. The "scored on" coach backed me, saying I was right. Restart was a goal kick. 1,200+ games and I don't recall ever seeing it. It didn't matter. "Scoring" team won 5-2 anyway.
U11 game yesterday, the one team (who’s getting killed) has been rotating in kids at goal about every 10 minutes. Problem is, a couple of these kids don’t look like they’ve ever played goal. One of the boys scoops up a shot towards him, then drops it to his feet and gets this really confusing look on his face and picks up the ball to place it for a goal kick. I hated doing it, but had to call the IDK. Then the coach of the winning team tells one of his players to just tap the ball back to the keeper. Classy move, obviously easier to do when you’re on your way to a 9-0 win.
I had a similar situation in a HSGV match a few weeks ago (going into the game I knew this would be a blowout). There had been a couple of goal kicks already, with a defender taking the kicks. So when the keeper made a save, she put the ball in her teammate's hands. I did not give a PK. (It was already 1-0 about five minutes in. It ended up 8-0 by halftime.) Drop ball to the keeper, get on with the game.