A partner specific bad story to go with my good weekend at Adult Regional Championships. I'm AR1 on a men's open division. Late in the first half, there is a fast ball over the top on the far sideline with the 2LD close to midfield. I take off to keep up with play and slam into the coach whom was on the touch line for the first time all game. I tried to grab with my right hand and his shirt ripped out of my fingers. My first conscious thought was, "F***! I'm out of position!" Based on the feeling on the back of my head, the coach is lucky he didn't end up with a broken nose. The coach then sat down on the bench for the rest of the half instead of standing at it. My friend was 4O on the adjacent field and happened to be addressing the technical area behind me. Some quotes from him telling the story. "[Dayton Ref] literally sat his ass down!" "I looked over and the coach is on his ass and [Dayton Ref] is 2 yards onto the field from bouncing off and starting to run again." I was fine. I know it wasn't my fault, but I feel bad. The man looked to be 70 and he might've broken something.
A long-standing member of NISOA going back decades: https://www.courant.com/obituaries/william-bill-j-fortin/ William “Bill” J. Fortin OBITUARY
For the second time this season, one of my friends had their first PRO assigned game as referee canceled. Game was Saturday, and I would wager that the visiting team couldn't get a flight with the world-wide BSOD issue. I'm not even positive he would have made it to the game.
You guys have to see this one https://www.instagram.com/p/C9vkreyuwFO/ "The tournament specifically told referees to limit their use of yellow and red cards because teams paid a lot of money to be here". My following match if I saw that written in writing to me: And I saw on some message board about this that the tournament refused to increase or provide decent ref fees, so the usual assignors boycotted, and they got terrible referees from much farther away because no one decent wanted to work for them. Well this is what you get. I'm telling you, I'm honestly going to look into buying the keychain pepper spray and keep it in my pocket during any sporting events I referee to threaten using and then use in self-defense if I need to. Only concern I have is the prospect of potentially facing a lawsuit if I used it on someone.
Rude, I just posted a new thread about it! https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/mass-con-referee-assault-at-surf-cup.2131584/#post-42412433
Today I did a U12 boys solo final and I had a nightmare scenario. Last 10-15 seconds, defending team up 3-2. Ball is in the air somewhere close to the AR1 touch line halfway into the attacking half in front of defending bench. All game, close OOB balls in the air I never blow the whistle and always call “play on”, which I also do here. Defending player catches the ball in the air. I call a handball. Bench is furious. On the set piece, cross goes into box and scored out of the air. Goes straight to PKs and the scoring team wins. Oh and also on the first kick, the goalkeeper of the team who conceded last second screamed as the penalty kicker took it, so despite him saving it it was a warning and retake, which then scored I made sure to get the hell outta there. Oh and also I gave 6 dissent yellow cards to U11-12 coaches in 10 games, when I would give maybe at most one over an entire season to any U13+ or high school coach
I worked a dual coed adult tournament today. The rules that went to all played said that fighting and mass confrontations can lead to match termination One game, first 5 minutes. Female defender pulls back on female attacker. Running to yellow card defender, attacker turns around and slaps her, who then punched her in retaliation. Players all run over and get into big rugby scrum, players running off the bench, people pushing and holding and squaring up on each other. We stood back and watched, taking a few notes, waiting for it all to die down. Took 2 minutes to separate everyone, then we terminated the match after 7 minutes.
Pennsylvania strikes again. Soft red is back and removing OT in the regular season was not removed. Could it get any worse here?
Bringing back the soft red. What’s next? Contested drop balls, goal kicks having to leave the penalty area before being play, or maybe indirect free kicks for injuries? Does PA realize that the sport has elviver over the years? Well, at least you don’t have to have completely black shoes anymore.
Not horribly bad, but I did a youth tournament Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Four centers, two lines. In both games where I was on the line, there was a double touch on a kickoff. Neither referee got the restart correct. The most recent time I've seen a double touch on a kickoff was a college women's game. I was AR1. I hear the kicker's coach behind me moan and then he says to the assistant coach, "She did that last week too, didn't she?" And the assistant replies, "Yep." I assume she was not a candidate to graduate summa cum laude.
Is this high school? If so, you know what will cause change? Referees refusing to do games. If you and your brethren continue doing games with terrible policies, expect the same crap. If it’s a minor youth level and the double touch doesn’t measurably affect play (I.e. the ball momentum moving forward lets them blast it), I just call out to play the game and then give the kicker a reminder
No, in both cases the referee stopped play and gave the kicker a do over. U-14 girls? Really? At that age, I'm not doing do-overs.
http://www.piaa.org/assets/web/documents/PIAA Reinstates The Soft Red.pdf I'm so looking forward to our chapter rules meeting Sunday
My State has a similar no suspension policy for a 2CT RC, but teams still play down from 2CT. They did away with allowing subs for "soft red" maybe 6 yrs ago or so. However, a 2CT for a substitute or coach does trigger the same suspension as a straight RC for a player. Makes it interesting when YC'ing a player, then as they're leaving the field they earn a 2CT (dissent)... Was the sub beckoned before or after the dissent? The prior means not playing down but the 2CT player was actually not a "player" at the time so they do get games suspension. The latter means playing down but no suspension as 2CT was while still a "player".
I forgot how most of the fun of refereeing disappears when you do games solo without the camaraderie of a crew. U11-12 tournament solo games because the money was decent. A few weekends ago I did 5 each day, then this weekend I did 6 each day. Outside of the referee tent, I just went out to the pretty isolated fields and stayed there the entire day, didn’t make sense to come back each game. The games were fine, didn’t really have to deal with dissent or anything. Just doing a game, standing alone at halftime, standing alone between games. I regularly do some adult matches solo, and those are somewhat isolating too but at least with those games there’s some conversation with the players since we’re all adults. With a bunch of little kids it’s just awkward. As opposed to games with a crew where you can have your break times together and talk about stuff