With the recent weather I have not been engaged in much refereeing action for about a month! The charity match for CHASE was good fun but either side many of my appointed games were called off due to frozen pitches.
As a result, it was good to actually have a game today!
I had no worries about fitness. Despite indulging over the holiday period I had got back into fitness training and was feeling good. No injuries kicking about either. This held up during the game as well including some opportunities to sprint when there was a sudden break by one of the teams.
However, this game was not a great one for me. Perhaps a key question is, “Would I have wanted to be assessed on this game?”. I don’t think so. This is an important question as I’ve applied for promotion and that process kicks off in March.
- “PUSH IN THE BACK!” – It’s awkward to referee when one team is continuously complaining about this but the other team just wants to get on with it. It’s hard to keep the flow. It’s worse when a team can’t see the difference between charging for the ball when it is in playing distance and when it is still floating twenty feet in the air. This calmed down eventually though once I had put my stake in the ground.
- WRONG PENALTY DECISION – I gave a penalty and it was wrong. Thankfully, a flagged offside had precedent which got me out of it. I know the penalty would have been wrong from the reaction of the attacking side when it was declined… they weren’t bothered!
- DISTRACTED – Got distracted by which ball was going to be used to restart play after it had gone sailing out. Missed the restart then thought the team was restarting with a free kick instead of a throw-in, rather than the fact that throw-in had been taken and just gone to a player! Complete screw-up. Resolved but should never have happened.
- HANDBAGS – Few confrontations sparked during this match. Nothing too serious but enough for me to stop play and have a word. No cautions required and in fact none were needed for anything else. A few sailed close to the wind for Dissent but a strong word sorted it. I should take this as a strong positive: No-one ended up smacked in the face nor was there a mass confrontation.
Perhaps I am being a little harsh on myself. Playing Advantage led to one of the goals and there were no errors which led to a change in the game. Home were 1-0 up until the last two minutes when Away banged in two goals to win. Nothing contentious!
It is also a good sign when players from both teams want to shake your hand… especially after one of those teams losing it within the last two minutes.
Plenty to learn from, especially with the promotion season approaching…