Two of them actually. I was not present for either of them, but I was told both by a high level assessor. Referee doing college game. After the game, the referee crew is in the locker room. They hear someone, a player, pounding on the door, repeatedly yelling "F.... you, refs!" They put this in their game report and the school says they will take care of the situation. A few weeks later, the referee is back at the same school. He appears wearing a jacket with the logo of the host school's conference rival. After the game, he refuses to shake the hands of the host school's players. Small college men's game. Home team wearing white shirts. During the game, a home team player tells the referee that a visiting team player has blood on his arm but doesn't tell or can't tell the referee which one. The referee can't figure out which player has blood on his arm, either. However, eventually it becomes apparent that the player in question, whomever he was, really did have blood because he has smeared blood on the shirts of 10 home team players! The referee had to stop the game and the home team's players with blood had to swap shirts with the guys on the bench. Apparently, the referee was still unable to identify which player had blood on his arm.
Best practice at that point? You've got the game stopped anyway – line up the visiting side and do an "OK, who's bleeding?" and an arm inspection?
Yes it does. Anybody hurt? And looking for which led me to this: https://abcnews.go.com/US/girls-soccer-team-yellow-carded-wearing-equal-pay/story?id=66401466
The complex it was at was hit hard. A mile south of my house it’s a war zone of trees and building parts.
This is a perfect example why the "media" gets a bad rap. 1. Misleading headline. "Girls soccer team is yellow-carded after wearing ‘equal pay’ shirts" gets much more attention than "Girls soccer team is yellow-carded after excessive celebration" 2. No context in the story. People reading the story would have to go to the comments section to learn that it would have been a yellow card regardless of the message. The story could have easily contained that rather relevant piece of info one would think.
Interesting (and I believe misleading) slant to the article, I'd say. Reading that, I can't help but think that the yellows were issued for removing the jersey, not for what was underneath. That's a mandatory caution even in HS, right? :edit: I did something I council myself never to do*: I read the comments. However, the point is raised there before the whole thing goes off the rails. *"Don't read the bottom of the internet."
How to tell a team just travelled 100 miles and did not expect to get clobbered by a traditionally bad --but surprisingly good this season -- opponent: Top of the lungs yelling at the timekeeper and ball girls. Dudes, you're down 4-zip. 25 extra seconds are not going to help.
Ok, had something happen to me that I am still trying to rethink in my head today on what I should have done. Please let me know if this has ever happened to you and what you did or did not do. HSBV playoff match last night. Double header and I am CR in the first match. Home team I have done before and have had issues with one player in particular. From this post: https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/best-story-of-the-week-2019.2092342/page-42#post-38222803 It is #6 a larger midfielder player from home team. Has a lot of fouls and complains every time they are called. Early in the game and it is still competitive, home team only up by one. #6 and visiting defender battling for a loose ball, contact is good until I see #6 throw up his elbow to push Visting player off the ball, I call the foul (just as my AR was raising his flag for the same thing) #6 looks at me and says, "why are you pointing THAT way?" (as I was pointing for the foul against him) I said I was ok with the contact until you raised and pushed off with your elbow, my AR saw the same thing. He got all huffy and said " Am am not going to talk to you again, just not even worth it" Which I was fine with. About three minutes later #6 goes to clear a ball and visitor comes in with a late challenge to try and block it. He ends up catching #6 in the head with his arm (glancing blow) and bounces off #6 in a heap (I did say #6 was a big boy) I stop the clock and issue visiting team a YC for the contact to the head but #6 is still aggrieved for SOME reason. Not 2 minutes later after home team loses the ball on an attack and I am waiting for the counter attack to get back to me I am hit from behind, not extremely hard, caught me in my right shoulder blade and turn to see #6 running past me... He never turned around or did anything to acknowledge that he hit me, but I wasn't back peddling, I was pretty much just standing there. I started to ask myself if he did that on purpose, I never did act upon it or acknowledge it in any way, but as I keep thinking about it, I wonder if I really should of. His coach pulled him at the next sub, and he was off for a good 20 minutes before coming back. Home team was up 6-0 at the time so the game temperature was really low. Have any of you ever had contact from a player that you think was not done accidentally? Am I overthinking this? Thinking back I can't see how the kid couldn't miss me. I am not a some target out on the pitch. Wondering if I should just let this go or maybe try and get a video of the match to take another look to either ease my mind or up my dander...
One way to handle that would be to take the blame. Next time you run past the player, say something like "My bad back there. I didn't mean to get in your way." Then, based on the player's reaction, maybe you can make a more informed decision about whether or not the contact was accidental or on purpose.
I had only talked to one of them later about it, because we were running to a match @ 7PM after that, but he said he didn't see what happened.
As you rightly mention, it's impossible to know for sure. Given the background between you two though -- I'd venture that maybe it was half accident and half the player purposely failing to slow himself down. Since you can't be sure, there's not much you can do. I've had some really big guys run into me, sometimes pretty hard, but on almost every occasion they adjust themselves or grab me as to soften the blow for both involved. Unless I really screwed up and got in their way in a bad spot (then they might be pissed), I find they are more apologetic to me than I am to them!!
The only time I really got hit by a player, I was umpire for a high school football varsity game. I'm a little over 200#. The 150# QB dropped back, saw an opening in the middle, and ran upfield. I was wondering whether to go left or right; I went down. I'm not sure what he thought, but he ran straight over me, and we both went down. Unhurt, we got up, brushed ourselves. I apologized for being in the way; he apologized for running me down, and the game went on. My wife said it made the 10 oclock news. Oh, no serious issues on the soccer pitch with players. Just getting hit with the ball.
We had a boys' varsity team this year, largest school's classification, that scored 3 goals in the just concluded regular season. They gave up 98. The school's girls team wasn't much better. They also scored 3 goals against other varsity teams, but mostly played a JV schedule. Their 0-0 league record, however, did not leave them in last place, however, because one of the other schools in their league was 0-6 in league. And they are not the lowest rated team in the state in their classification!
Bunch of thunderstorms and rain predicted today (Saturday) so they moved games around to turf fields and cancelled all others. All 3 of my games, one of which would have been my 3rd ref cancelled. It's 30 minutes into the 1st game and it hasn't rained since 9am.... Ah well.. .can't win 'em all, I guess. Bah.
Last games of the high school regular season. JV game is pretty much U-12 rec. Home team has 11 players. Temperatures in the low 40's, with wind blowing 15 to 20 mph out of the east. North-south field, so, guess what, all of the play is on the west side. Lots of throw-ins. Amazingly, the players on both teams who were wearing "visible undergarments" under their shirts ALL had colors that matched. The varsity game is on the turf field, which is east-west. That meant that each team had one half of being able to actually take shots. Neither succeeded. Game was meaningless as well, since neither team was in position to make the playoffs. By the end of the varsity game, it was 38 with the wind up to 35 mph. I wore the warmup pants during the game.
I had a play like that a few years back. D2 College Women. A good conference that has teams consistently ranked in the top 25. Last game of the regular season, conference tournament is their next game. Player who is the team’s leading scorer, and was already, or about to be name the Conference Player of the Year, had the attitude to go with it. One of THOSE players. She gets fouled 3 times during the game, called two of them and played advantage on the third. Every time she is complaining about that it should be a card. They were all careless, but she felt if she was touched, it should be a yellow card. That type of attitude. Game in hand to them, under five minutes to go, substitution on a corner kick, so I turn toward the sideline to signal the clock to stop and call on the subs. So imagine my shoulders are parallel to the side line. Start to turn back toward the PA, so shoulders are now parallel to the goal line, and she hits me with her shoulder into my shoulder. I’m 90% sure it was on purpose. I wait a second, no apology. She stops near me to set up for the oncoming corner kick so I say to her, hitting a referee is a red card. She claims that she was just walking to her spot and I turned into her. Now I’m 95% sure because even if I did not turn there was no reason for her to be within 3 inches of me like that. The look on her face puts it up to 99% sure. But with the 1%, I didn’t do it. The repercussions would have been huge. They already had the regular season locked up, and she ended up carrying them to winning the conference tourney, and made it really far in the NCAA’s, Final 4 I think. She was named first team all American and went on to play professionally. Would any of that have changed had I sent her for Ref Assault and she sat out those 2 games? They probably would not have won their conference tourney, which probably would have kept them out of the NCAA tourney. I don’t know. My gut said it was 100% on purpose, but I never could get my brain to go to that 100% as well, so I let it go. But it bothered me for a while. In the end, no one would have expected that as an outcome, as no one really noticed but her and I. *If I was 100% brain and gut, I would have red carded her. Her being a “star” did not stop me from doing it. Just wanted to paint the picture of what it would have meant. *Video wasn’t as good back then. A bit grainy. Now we would look at the video and say inconclusive either way, or it wasn’t clear and obvious to overturn either call.
I hear ya. I had a gal go down in the penalty area earlier this year. I didn't bite, because there was no contact but she was trying to sell it as a PK. She stayed down for a couple of seconds, until play moved away, so it was like she was even giving me the chance to determine that there was no advantage to be realized by her team before I called a PK. I shoulda/coulda given her a caution for diving. It ate at me for almost a week. It's always the cards I don't give that bother me.
Guts don't have percentages, they just say yes or no. Brains have percentages. I had this happen once along time ago. HSBV A shoulder graze during a transition from a previously pissed off player. My gut said, It had to be, why is that guy running into me?. My brain was at about 90%, could have been an accident. So I just ignored it. Since I was bigger, I pretended I didn't feel it. Without certainty, I thought anything I did or said -- short of RC-- wouldn't reflect well on my authoritah.
Not a "really" bad story, but I am fairly sure I made a bad call tonight. Been a very busy HS season, reffing 6-7 days a week. This was my first night game and we had a wet foggy GV game (dual) under the lights. Home team is decent (12-3) and basically dominating a quality (8-5) opponent, but still 0-0 at about 30 minutes in. Home team striker intercepts a goal kick and drives thru and past 2 defenders a full step and I hear boot on boot (and I am only about 7 yds away) and she goes down. I immediately whistle for PK. And have instant 2nd guess as I realize she was that full step ahead. I am wondering if she tripped herself. But defenders don't make a peep and more importantly, no reaction or body language that I blew the call - I mean none, both just put heads down and move outside the box for the PK. That made me feel a little more certain I made the right call. Striker buries PK and they are off to a 5-0 win, and it was not that close. At the half, I ask my partner about it and he says he was too far away to be sure, but commented that I was right on top of the play and that I sold it well. I mention that I thought she might have tripped herself, and he says, coach is coming up behind you. Sure enough, she asks about the call and I said she was tripped. She says, "c'mon, my kid was not even close and she tripped herself. Ai yi yi" (exact words) and she walks away. Since I was already thinking this was possible, now I am sure I blew it. Still kind of amazed at the defenders lack of reaction. It would have been messy, but I could have possibly changed my mind and ruled inadvertent whistle on the self trip. I mean, I watch players reactions all the time for last touch on OOB when I am unsure and 90% of the time, they call it for me without issue. Must have been the late night, late season, foggy November game and they just didn't care anymore............