A very nice grass field complex I ref in has a goose problem where a large flock of Canadian geese tend to hang around one of the grass fields. Doing a U19 NPL boys game and we had to delay the start of the match while the keeper and CR/AR had to shoo geese away while they congregated on one end. Had to do this multiple times. Then during active play, visiting team crosses a ball into the PA and it nails one of the geese. It was probably going to land at the foot of an attacker to at least put a shot somewhere around goal. CR blows whistle, players/coaches/fans extremely confused what to do. Had to correctly give a drop ball to the keeper which the visiting team was pissed about but it's the correct thing to do. I was AR1 so I told the visiting coach "sorry coach, home field advantage I guess" Those dumbass geese finally got the idea to fly away after getting creamed. I think we got off lucky because Canadian geese are ornery and I was concerned the geese would start attacking players who tried to shoo them away, or hit them. Imagine the incident report if we had the abandon the match due to angry geese.
It really stands for “United Premier Soccer League. It is a “semi-pro” (I use that term VERY loosely) league in the US.
Sounds like our home complex. My town is one of the flattest places I’ve ever seen. The glaciers did a number on this place millenia ago! But we have an obscene amount of retainage ponds, including four in the complex. Those suckers retain a lot of geese! I always check my shoes after working out or refereeing there to make sure I’m not tracking goose poop into the house.
Full weekend. I'm on a run of 10 games in 8 days, 11 if you include the one game I played in yesterday morning. 9 Varsity games and one modified match. Saturday night was a shit house party at a school's homecoming night. Portable lights surrounding the field humming too loud, and packed stands. Sadly school administrators do not watch over the stands. My district school always has a raucous crowd, but the admin's rule that stand with an iron fist. Crowd is loud but you can't go off with bad language or picking on individual opponents. Pretty terrible ball from most of the players in a forgettable 6-0 game. Switch that to Sunday, and I am asked to ref a Prep school tournament. Got a center and an AR in my two games. I'm centering to major New England schools. The sidelines had a few handfuls of college coaches out there scouting. Friggin wonderful match. Skill level on every player was just unreal. Worked my ass off. Took lots of shit from both sides. Funny how many of them (coaches included) approach you afterwards and apologize knowing they try to get every call. Its amazing that the game on Sunday compared with my game in my over-40 league that I play and the crap match on Saturday are all considered the same game of soccer. Just a different world.
I play in pickup games and I’m always stunned (and grateful) when something approaching soccer happens*. *To be clear, I am never responsible for such happenstances….
Follow-up to the last post about the GV game, this time BV with the same great partner. Clear handball 10 yards outside the PA, gave advantage with the attacking team screaming at me, gave a second advantage for a sliding tackle trip just outside the PA, ball was played through to one of the two wide open attackers in the middle of the PA (why I was waiting), and an easy tapin goal. Shut them up for a bit, until the game tying goal which they believed had a "one handed throw" as an assist. I explained the not so new throw-in rule to the coach pretty close to verbatim and that was that. On to the next!
16U girls low-mid level club game on Sunday morning. Red's coach isn't there (apparently driving in from several hours away at a tournament) but I had a game card so I checked them in to save some time. There were several girls listed on the roster who weren't there, leaving Red with only 12. One girl explained all the absences: "It was homecoming last night, they're probably all hung over." I asked her (probably stupidly) whether she had gone, and she said, "Oh yeah, I went, I probably got two hours of sleep, so I'm good." And she was right, they absolutely clobbered the other team.
I have six 7v7 solos Sunday. A state instructor said she wishes she was refereeing again. I jokingly said she could help me, and we could do the games as two-whistle duals. She said no duals, even on those games. I considered saying I could even bring my comms.
HS match yesterday. OT. Called "Play On!" for the golden goal. Was greatly disappointed when the winning team rushing onto the field to celebrate chose to mob the guy who scored the goal and not me.
I'd usually be the first one at the field with my kid for practice with a field full of geese. I'd empty the ball bag and have my kid try to launch ball into the middle of the geese. He was small and even if the ball got close enough they would just walk away from it. The next car to show up was always a teammate who had two greyhounds. As soon as they were let off their leash the geese problem went away.
As you may be aware some of those N.E. Preps have been competing since the17/1800's. I did a lot of those and tried to keep up with who did what to whom 150 yrs ago. When I hear a bench discussing payback for some grievance from the 1920's ..... I'm ready!
This past weekend I was doing a lower comp level youth tournament and one particular U17 boys game I did was my worst in a long time. After a Spring and Fall season so far of higher level play I wasn't used to the sloppy lower level play and their general dislike of playing through contact and expecting the ref to call everything. Had to deal with spectators crying all first half about contact and at half time the coaches used my dreaded "losing control of the game" phrase to me. I spoke to my experienced ARs and they said there was nothing wrong with the contact we were letting go, but that obviously they want it all called. The tournament directors also had come by to watch because they heard the uproar going on and said all our contact was fine as well, but agreed with my ARs. We proceeded to bring the second half of the match to an unplayable screeching halt. Nearly every time a player touched another we called a foul. Charging, holding, everything. Corner kicks, any jockeying for position I would stop the kick and force them to not touch each other. I was having to call fouls that I absolutely did not want to, but this is what they wanted. Maybe I went too far, but whenever I hear that phrase used something in my mind flips and I can't allow it any longer.
It happened to me in a HS Game today. Im used to letting a certain amount of contact going but today the teams wanted it called.
I had a BV game the other night where the early going seemed to establish that both teams wanted a fair amount of contact and handsiness. Which we let go. Later (as teams tired maybe) the crescendo of complaint about said behavior rose, and I confess thinking "you got what you paid for." I'd love to replay the game with a DSC rather than double-dual, see how much was us and how much them.
Speaking of double duals, I had a double dual with a very experienced official, who once held a very different badge when officiating club games than any of us in the chapter - let's call him R1. And another official, we'll call him R2. We had two situations that made me cringe at the double dual.... Situation 1. Temperature of the game is rising, we're getting really stupid. R1 is in the center, R2 is the lead. Ball going out for throw in, black shielding, white pushes black in the back when the ball was already going down the track. They start a little pushing afterwards but it stops. R1 blew the whistle really loud and long, R2 is right there. R2 does not do anything. R1 goes over to the benches and asks two coaches to talk, they chat for 2 minutes, asking to help control the players, as they are both getting at it, starting to talk and it's becoming stupid. (it worked very well in the long run). He goes back R2 argues with him that it's a throw in, because the push happened after the ball had already gone. R1 at first said that he already told everybody it's a kick and that's what everybody expected, but R2 insisted that the ball was out so it should be a throw in. So R1 just said "ok fine it's a throw in" and it created a lot of confusion. No misconduct was given, however... Second situation, 6 minutes before the end of the game, two goal lead. A ball goes into the box, hits the defender from the top with his arm in natural position. R1 is the lead and is yelling "nothing, nothing, nothing." R1 blows the whistle for a PK for handling... Yeah, I really dislike the double duals.
I've had something similar happen in a dual several things. I've yelled, "Advantage! Play on!" only to hear my partner blow the whistle for the foul!