Bad stories

Or you can use your position as someone the league (presumably) trusts and tell them that their request is unrealistic and underpays their referee.

 

It's a local rec office....you really think they care what anyone's opinion is?

They will definitely get a sucker or two responding. Most likely, someone who would never be considered to do a sanctioned adult game.

These were the same folks who went out of their way to admit in an email about "man management" issues (usually, but not always, a code word for "ref actually gave red or yellow cards in these games").

 

Yeah, it was unclear whether "game management issues" was code for "gives cards" or if it was code for "stands in one place at midfield while they beat the tar out of each other". Not that it matters much to me.

 

@RefGil You can just say "No thank you" and keep it moving

 

I've done adult indoor solo and outdoor AR along those lines, though I do also do sanctioned adult games. $40 for a 50 minute game is about right, particularly since they can promise 3 games. I actually lost those games for a couple years because I fell out of favor with the assignor, so no real problem finding guys at that pay.

I've come to the realization that I actually like that players yell at us. Considering that we let 15 year olds ref games, if people were nice to us refereeing would be a minimum wage job.

 

My normal stride is 2 1/2 ft +/- 1 nanometer. Stepping off 10 yds...easy peasy. 62 miles is 130,944 steps...I've done that too!

 

Have no clue why:

Referee body camera trials extended worldwide following Club World Cup test - Yahoo Sports

 

So we can see how shaky things are when someone with a body camera is sprinting.

 

it gives me vertigo...but don't tell my assignors!!!

 

People here who have the misfortune of recognizing my posts know that I give quite a few yellow cards (almost all of the reckless/SPA variety, no cheap ones). It's become a joke with fellow refs I know in real life as well.

I almost never have people complain that I shouldn't have given a card, but it seems like whenever I actively, deliberately try to not give cards to avoid my usual follies, this is where issues arise. Just happened again today. Pretty low level youth tournament but the host club is starting EA this Fall and did have their U14B team playing. One kid on the team is skilled but very small and almost every time he got beat by an opponent with possession, he's reaching out and doing some type of pulling, pushing, or attempt to. A few times go by with no real effect so no foul. I call a foul on one, tell him to just watch out. Then he does this blatant quick pull on the opponents shorts from behind around the bottom of the center circle, defensive end, player going laterally. I wait and see, player loses possession, I call back the foul and the opponent gives him a little push along with a "ref you saw him pulling my shorts!?!?" I start reaching for the pocket to give him a yellow for UB-respect for the shorts pull, but tell myself "no, this is just a preseason tournament, give him a final but loud warning", no card.

Passage of play on the resulting free kick, opponent scores a goal and he gets up fist pump FCK YEAH yelling in one of the EA team player's face. Easy yellow card which I give. Coach asks me "ref, sure yellow 100% no problem, but why no yellow for the big shorts pull on the foul?" I give him my cowardly explanation, then as I'm leaving I hear the EA coach tell him "hey coach I agree, shorts pull should have been a yellow".

See this is why I just stick with my method of giving the clear and obvious yellows for reckless/ SPA, respect, rather than the "giving warnings" rigamarole. Seems to always come back to bite me. Maybe it's just poor player management skills or something.

 

The cards I regret not having given weigh the cards I regret having given about 20:1

 

Here is the card that I regret not giving. Several years ago in our adult sanctioned summer league playoffs, I was CRing one of the semifinals. Early in the game, I call a foul. One of the home team defenders starts loudly and publicly dissenting the call saying there is no way that it was a foul. Easy yellow for dissent, which I gave him. Late in the second half with his team up by one, same defender commits a SPA foul at midfield. In my head I'm thinking that if it wasn't SPA, it would have been just a careless foul that would not have resulted in a card so I just give him a stern talking to. His team goes on to win the game and make the finals. A few days later, I go to watch the finals since I wasn't assigned to the game. Wouldn't you know who causes the most problems for the ref, but this same defender? He was constantly in the ref's face and eventually got two cautions (and the resulting red). The one player turned what could have been a great final into a terrible game. All I could think was that if I had done my job and given the second caution in the semifinal, he would not have been playing the game at all.

 

In games involving teens, I used to pride myself on the ability to be able to talk to players during stoppages about dissent or after a play that was a borderline yellow and they usually wouldn't be a problem for the rest of the match. That same player would be the first to shake your hand after the game.

I'd say 7 years ago or so, I just began issuing cautions because a warning to a player to knock it off simply resulted in them committing the same offense 5 minutes later and I'd feel like a chump. Just like everyone here, my game evolved.

I probably also issue more cautions than most, but it's mostly due to the fact that referees are afraid they won't be assigned again to an event or match because it will be seen that they didn't have "good man management".

 

I saw that at the Elite Academy League finals a couple of months ago. It's painfully obvious based on my experience that the teams in that event just were not used to a referee issuing cards. I had a match with 9 yellows and a red. All four officials on the crew were adamant that the cards were justified. The game on Saturday was smooth for 70 minutes, then had six cautions and a 2CT in the final 10 minutes plus stoppage. In both cases, I heard the usual comments. "You don't understand the game." "You're card happy." "You have lost control and have to use cards."

Basically, a referee who wasn't afraid to issue a card was deemed as someone who "couldn't manage a game". I bolded the word intentionally. It's not about "managing" a game. You're ultimately there to enforce the Laws of the Game. "Not managing" really means, "We get away with this most of the time - why aren't you being lenient like we're used to?"

 

And it’s what they see on TV.

 

I did something similar in a higher level game this spring. Player is already on a yellow and has zero self-control. On a stoppage, I told the coach in the first half, "You may want to get this guy out before you find yourself playing with 10 players.

To his credit, he didn't start him for the first 15 minutes of the 2nd half (the ROC allows re-entry of same player). However, he got his second yellow card 5 minutes after coming back into the game. I do not pretend I understand today's teens.

His coach did not object either during the red card or after the game. Their fans (FWIW, the team was out of state), were out of their minds and heard a few comments such as "you're losing control" as this player is probably used to behaving this way. The home team fans basically gave me a standing ovation. I had to whistle only two fouls the remaining 20 minutes of the match.

 

Absolutely. And with how many cards I give, it means I never have regrets anymore.

Or they watch Premier League, where the English referees just blatantly ignore and even make up their own LOTG, then wonder why they get the actual laws applied to their games

Yup, this is always what it comes down to. And you guys know with my avatar and signature, it's not a surprise I'm like this. But when a game has a ton of cards, it's ALWAYS the referee's fault, it's never the players' faults for their behavior. Ref lost control, ref can't manage players, ref only uses his cards, etc. But of course, the most common yellows are for reckless and SPA and they are almost always one-off fouls, i.e. you can't generally "manage" away a single tactical foul or reckless foul from happening, so it's always hilarious to hear the "but ref it's my first foul!" on his reckless slide or taking down an attacker racing into the attackig third.

It's funny you mentioned Elite Academy, a few years back when they first started these games, a local assignor put me as center on the EA U17s because they were the hardest game (rather than the expected U19s), he's a regional and mentor/assessor so he wanted to watch me. I think the game ended up with 10 or 11 yellow cards, including multiple advantage after reckless challenges, and maybe only one of them was a cheap DT/FRD/DR, the rest were PO, reck, spa. Told me all of them were justified and to not feel bad at all, that refs who miss multiple of those are the ones who lose complete control, NOT the ref who does give them.

I will credit one parent and coach from pre-covid, both of whom basically turned me into this after I had been the "let them play" ref. It was a girls game, a team who I had reffed as they moved up age groups every year and they were somewhat dirty. Well one game when I was still a cowardly center, I was definitely not calling fouls. One parent called out "hey ref you're losing control of the game", and the coach also yelled out "girls protect yourselves, the ref isn't doing it for you!". They were 100% right, I sucked ass. At halftime I told my ARs "call everything you see, I will too, I'm locking it down moving forward". Second half, game screeched to a halt as I called everything. Now the cries were "ref isn't letting us play, what happened to the first half!?!?" I told them "I was losing control of the game, now I'm not". And I haven't lost control of a game since. Sure I've had the odd mass confrontation from one incident, but my referee goal is to never again lose control of a game due to my own incompetence, too few foul calls, and not giving deserved cards.

 

There’s no such thing

 

I definitely regret the cards I give way more than the cards I don't. If you keep the cards in your pocket, no one cares. When I start pulling reds, that's what causes me to lose assignments.

 

Yeah, I've refereed this kid many times in the past. No, not this specific kid, but the one you describe. Somewhat skilled, highly competitve, and at this age, likely a bit immature for his age and does not listen to instruction (from coaches, referees etc). At his age,essentially a 'behavior problem' and 'age-realated emotion issues.' Probably best to give him the message with the card. Warnings mean absolutely nothing. And from the sounds of your post his coach would have appreciated it too.

 

I'm a community club assignor, not big tournaments or anything, but I trust that my guys give cards when they are needed. I worry more about cards that might/could/should have been given, but weren't.

 

Now with high school exhibition games in full swing this week, I am back to wearing the bright yellow that makes us look like warehouse personnel instead of referees. I figure I'd be in the "Bad Stories" thread in a week or two, but that was unrealistic:

1) In one game, a player just wipes out a guy late in an exhibition match with the ball several yards away and I issue a straight red. The coach is genuinely shocked and yells out "What did he do wrong!?!" It's the type of play that never happens in an academy match because the kids are skilled and if it happens in a club league match, the coach would say "I don't know what my guy was thinking" after the match. Because it's high school soccer, the sight of a red card is as rare as a lunar eclipse, especially in our chapter.

Even though I allowed him to sub the player, he was still upset. The opposing coach shouts at this guy saying "You should have pulled him off the field before the red card even came out!....he could have seriously hurt my player! The culture has changed very little since I was in high school many years ago.

2) Yes, a team actually came late for a road game on a non-school day where there was almost zero traffic since everyone seems to be on vacation. The excuse given was the AD told them that the game was at the home teams school, but they have no field there and play all of their games at a nice facility in a county park.

When I first became a HS official 2 years ago, I was told by regulars here that the reason for lateness is "Post-Covid because of a lack of bus drivers", "You don't know how difficult it is to be an Athletic Director" as if they're performing brain surgery (used to work with them regularly when I was running a large youth soccer program) and "It's not as easy to organize teens as you think" (I was a former travel coach long before I started officiating).

Now that it's my 3rd year, I see now it's just poor justification for a culture that existed long ago and people who should want change are justifying it.

While there are many bright and nice AD's out there, the reality is most are politically connected choices and can't spend 10 seconds to verify the location and don't care about sending their teens to the wrong place and the reality is that many of these coaches can't take the initiative to verify anything themselves.

We stayed 30 minutes later than we should have and don't get compensated. Many NFHS refs are still ok with this and that's why things will never change.

 

This clip shows where we stand as a society today and heading backwards towards the Cro-Magnon era.

An adult takes a cap clearly intended for a young fan. The adult, who happens to a prominent CEO, grabs it away from the kid and puts it in his wife's bag. When he's exposed online, he doubles down and blames the kid for not being quick enough.

When I was younger, it was fun to go to US Open matches as you had a mixture of locals and tourists who happily co-existed as I got autographs on ticket stubs (cell phones with cameras didn't exist back then). Nowdays, it's a much more uncivil and unruly crowd despite the high ticket prices.

 

As the center sometimes you have the perfect angle on an offside decision ... from the flow of play and my view I could see the kick point, attacker, and halfway line. Attacker behind the defenders but easily 3 steps in his own half when the ball is played. After her scores...

Coach: "He's 5 yards offside!"

Me: "He's in his own half, I can see it from here. AR has the same thing."

Coach: "But he's five yards behind the last defender!"

Me: "Yes, I know. But he's still in his defensive half of the field."

Coach: "How can he not be offside?"

Me: "Can't be offside in you're not in the attacking end."

Coach: "Harrumph."

As we're walking to the ref tent at halftime I can hear the coach complaining to his team about the non-offside call. Parents are grousing at us as well.

Sigh.

This was U19 State League. I genuinely believe the coach didn't know the rule (they were playing their center backs about 5-7 yards past the midfield stripe most of the 1st half, got burned on long balls twice).

I can understand confusion on some of the rare / unusual LoTG stuff, but I thought this was pretty universal.

Sigh.