I am pretty happy with how this one went and it also won ‘Best Prepared Speech’ on the night. The vocal variety was commended but of course there are always going to be things that I need to work on:
HANDS: Distracting. I do use body language for effect pretty well nowadays (and avoid pacing!) but the hands do attract comments. This may be a tough one to break.
SHADES OF GREY: I do a good job of quiet/loud and soft/harsh switching in this speech. Is there room for more though? Shades of grey and smoother transitions between the two? That said, the ‘snap’ transitions were deliberate…
EYE CONTACT: I loved this suggestion! While I make eye contact with the audience I do not quite let it linger enough to make it as powerful as it could be. It’s something to experiment with.
One thing I found very interesting when giving this speech was the audience reaction. Yes, they laughed as I hoped but it was clear some thought the transition to the serious part of the speech was just a set-up to another gag. I wonder what can be done about that? Or is it just a recognised hazard with giving a 6-7 minute speech which is trying to cross both worlds?
My next speech will have the goal of ‘Research Your Topic’ so I need to get thinking…
Physical positioning is a key aspect of building rapport with people. There is a lot to this concept including various NLP principles. An excellent general article on this subject has been written by Nicky Kriel: Communication – Let’s get Physical! and I strongly recommend that you take a look. The article details how space, angles and sides come into play.
We use these when refereeing to deliberately elicit the desired response as part of a stepped approach to discipline:
THE QUIET WORD: Running up to a player discreetly during play and asking them to calm down, or explaining something you have heard them grumbling about. Typically side by side, so it does not feel confrontational or lecturing. The positioning is saying: “Hey, we’re on the same side here”.
THE NOT SO QUIET WORD:Raised voice from a distance: “That’s enough now”, “I’ve seen it, I played the advantage”, “GREAT challenge!” If aimed at a player the intention is also to let others know things have been seen or heard! The eye contact is there but no change in positioning from the referee. The positioning is saying: “Here’s my comment for everyone to hear, but we are just getting on with things!”.
THE TALKING TO: Play is stopped for this. The player is taken to a neutral spot and addressed head on. “I don’t want to see any more challenges like that”, “This is your last warning: Stop questioning my decisions”, “I’m cautioning you for that tackle”. Gestures are used so that the other players on the pitch have an idea what is going on! The positioning is saying: “I’m not being nice now, I AM lecturing you and everyone is getting to see why!”
The positioning in the above cases has a real impact on the game and the players. Imagine how you would feel if they were twisted around? A ‘quiet word’ when someone draws attention to it and is looking at you head on and invading your personal space? How about you’ve done something REALLY bad but someone just comes up to you side-on and says, “Don’t do it again”: Would you actually feel disciplined or instead that you had just got away with something? How would it look to spectators?
Positioning is a powerful force with building rapport and vital for keeping control of a match. Do you have any positioning tricks?
Violent Conduct results in a clear dismissal when it happens. The relevant part of the Laws Of The Game are as follows:
A player is guilty of violent conduct if he uses excessive force or brutality against an opponent when not challenging for the ball.
He is also guilty of violent conduct if he uses excessive force or brutality against a team-mate, spectator, match official or any other person.
Violent conduct may occur either on the field of play or outside its boundaries, whether the ball is in play or not.
A clear line has to be drawn that this is totally unacceptable in the game. This is a more obvious line in some cases: My first dismissal for Violent Conduct was following a player deliberately stamping on the head of their opponent.
In my most recent game as Assistant Referee, two players were dismissed for Violent Conduct after getting into a fight. It started as ‘handbags’ but a few punches were thrown. No question: Dismissal. The furore afterwards also resulted in a team manager being ordered away from the touchline by the referee.
That was bad enough but the irksome bit was the comment “It shouldn’t have been a red card; it wasn’t a proper fight”. Not a proper fight?! In my eyes, even an attempt to strike or preparing to throw a punch is going to result in a dismissal. Remember that we dismiss for ‘touching heads’ even though it is not what would traditionally be called a head butt.
I’d be very concerned if some referees were being soft on this one as it has to be a zero-tolerance line. Equally, the players and team officials need to treat it as such as well. Certainly never players ‘blowing off steam’ …
Have you encountered any ‘borderline’ Violent Conduct? Where do you feel that ‘adopting an aggressive attitude’ (Unsporting Behaviour) comes in instead?
I gave my third Toastmasters speech at Farnham Speakers yesterday. The goal on this was ‘Get To The Point!’ which is pretty self-explanatory.
I did have some other goals to try and crack though:
‘Pointless’ body language had crept into my previous speech. In particular, pacing the stage when it had no link to what I was saying. I was determined to make sure that any body language used had a point! This seemed to work well.
A key topic in this speech is football refereeing, either part of which may make people turn off immediately! So I had to keep it engaging. I got a positive response on the content.
What do I need to work on?
Notes. I’ve never needed them before but I referred to them on occasion this time. BAD. Must prepare more to ENSURE this NEVER happens again.
Hands. A suggestion that sometimes to drop my hands by my side. I think this is a good one as it will add a bit more power to when my hands are actually used.
Calm down. My nerves are still coming through and this links into just relaxing and practising more. This will of course also solve the notes issue! Spending extra days has reaped benefits before, as demonstrated when I repeated a speech.
Now I need to start thinking about what to talk about for my fourth speech! Toastmasters is a fantastic, supportive organisation for improving on public speaking… and I can see the confidence helping with my refereeing as well!
Man in Pompey shirt lifting FA cup. Last week. Last week I lifted the FA Cup. Well, one of them. I’m not convinced that it was the real deal. I was tempted to start running out of the stadium and see how many people started chasing me as a test but decided it would not be particularly professional!
I was helping out at the Jobsite World Cup. This was a great little 5-a-side football tournament hosted by Jobsite at Fratton Park. It is really interesting to be at a premiership championship stadium on a non-match day and explore all the facilities! Not even the changing rooms were safe…
Although I was originally present as an assistant and to take some wonderful photographs I did get roped in to play for the Jobsite ‘B’ team. This mostly consisted of people that don’t really play football in any seriousness. Hey, I like to think I am a pretty hot referee but my first (and second…third…) touch is shocking. Predictably we got thrashed but I did set up the most amazing goal… honest, I really did.
Well in there!
There was some great skill (and importantly, sportsmanship!) on display. Matchtech won through in the end representing Cameroon so many congratulations to them!
Now to continue to work towards my own footballing goal: To be refereeing at stadiums like this in high profile games in the future! It’s certainly not going to be an easy journey but then what fun would it be if not challenging?
The season is now over so my main focus at the moment is preserving fitness (including sprinting speed and agility to avoid evil Achilles problems). There may well be a shift in focus from football to judo for a bit as a result of this training…
“There are no bad children, only bad parents” is a phrase which is known by many. Essentially, behaviour is learned, mimicked, whichever you feel applies. The same principle applies to sports and over the years I have certainly seen it first hand.
I should stress before continuing that ‘bad’ is a bit strong in most cases. A coach is not setting out to be a bad coach. They are not sitting at home before heading to an event wondering how best they can upset people and have a counter-productive influence on whoever they are coaching. They do want the best outcome for their athletes but their approach has somehow become misguided.
Judo is predicated around mutual benefit and welfare. As a result, the attitudes of the vast majority of coaches and indeed the players has been exemplary in my experience. Yes, perceived bad calls from the referee team are challenged but it is an absolute exception when any behaviour starts to become threatening! This just goes to show how enforcing such principles from the very beginning of the coaching process reap benefits throughout a judoka’s life.
Football, however, has a long-running battle with behavioural problems. The fact that the Respect campaign exists in the first place is testament to this. There is conflict between players (even those on the same team), managers, coaches, spectators and referees. The second game I refereed ‘featured’ an altercation where one manager allegedly assaulted the other over a confrontation regarding a child swearing at some of the gathered parents.
Particularly with youth football, the coaches set the example. If I meet a friendly, relaxed, professional and balanced coach it comes as no surprise when his or her team are there to actually play football. There is precious little dissent. In the unfortunate event that I had to dismiss a player for violent conduct (the irony is appreciated), a manager I am thinking of said after the game “I have no problem with the decision, he deserved it, he has to learn somehow”. Such a well-balanced view is sadly rare.
Compare and contrast to, shall we say, the more shouty coaches. The referee’s decisions are likely to be targeted to compensate in any short falls in team ability. A referee may be pilloried for getting a penalty decision wrong, but the fact that a team missed several open goals will be conveniently forgotten!
That said, some such coaches are ‘balanced’ in that they are just as likely to shout in the same way at their own team. This does, however, result in the players having the same form of attitude (high levels of dissent) which the referee has to deal with firmly. It is important to set the boundaries EARLY.
Referees are there to control the event and enforce as required. Coaches, however, should have trained their players in such a way that the referee should never NEED to be dealing with discipline issues.
However, it is very important to keep an open mind despite the general trends. I was surprised when the latter style of coach who had very loudly criticised a penalty decision during a game was very polite and listened afterwards. He just wanted to know the reasoning. I also heard him complimenting an opposing player on a run. More balanced than perhaps someone just hearing the shouting might have realised.
During my cup final there was one player getting VERY angsty over an offside not being given. I took him to one side and explained what had happened. Once he understood, the angst immediately vanished and he apologised.
Let us not forget the parents as well. They are not just instilling behaviour (good or bad) in their children at home but also when standing and watching at the side of a sporting event!
Coaches, parents, referees… we all have our role to play in education.It is NEVER someone else’s problem: We all have a responsibility to help!
I would love to hear about any behaviour, good or bad, you have witnessed at sporting events and how this may have been linked to any coaches and/or parents present!
This time it was my turn to be in charge for the ‘top’ (Division 1) cup final for the Farnham and District Sunday Football League. It was an honour to get this appointment considering this has been my first season and is obviously a reflection on my performance. It also meant that I would be provided with neutral assistants to form my team. Exciting!
The game itself was hosted at Farnham Town FC which is great little ground. Unfortunately, we did not have the weather on the day: It rained pretty much throughout. I was able to keep warm with all the running about but my poor assistants did not have the opportunity to move quite as much!
Yep, still in charge...
Despite the conditions, there was a good crowd present with the seating at capacity. I didn’t really notice this until half-time as from the moment I led the teams onto the pitch for the Respect handshake I was in the zone and filtering all that out. I’ve been involved in these many a time when acting as Assistant but it was certainly a real thrill to be doing it as the actual referee.
Also present were the various officers of the league which meant I was acutely aware that I really did not want to be screwing this one up!
The game itself was a feisty, competitive and passionate affair. Both teams really went for it although the differences did show by the end both on the pitch and by the 3-2 result. ‘Only’ two cautions were required (both for dissent). Unfortunately, there was also an injury: A dislocated shoulder but by the reaction from the player and his team I got the impression that this was an old ‘war wound’ (he didn’t seems shocked at all!)
After the game my team received their medals and of course so did those actually playing! Both sides were ultimately a credit to Sunday football which does get a bad name from some quarters. I was happy to have worked with two neutral assistants who really helped me out (With club-provided assistants you can never fully ‘trust’ them as they are obviously impartial). With the neutrals I could happily let them call fouls and so on in their part of the pitch which really helped with credibility.
Shiny!
We were visited in our changing room after the game by an assessor: We had been stealth assessed! He was very complimentary, particularly so once he realised this was my first season! In particularly he was happy with my application of Law and the development point that he had for me was to reduce any non-official signals which could cause confusion and/or draw unnecessary attention. A very fair comment and I will be working on just that from now on. The league officials were also happy…. and the players seemed to be as well!
In all, a very exciting and enjoyable day that gave me a real buzz. As the game went well it also meant it should be memorable for the players, team officials and supporters as well (for the right reasons) which ultimately meant I did my job properly on the day.
It has been a good season. I’ve been appointed to a few quarter and semi finals at county level and was really pleased to get a league cup final. U17s to be precise and being held at Cove football club. These appointments tend to be based on performance during the season which is naturally a good benchmark.
I ended up as Senior Assistant on the day although the benches were easily managed. The game itself went really well, albeit a little one sided, and in my opinion was excellently controlled by the referee. I was particularly happy with my own performance and especially the feedback I got after the game. I had to suppress a smile when I heard some of the spectators behind me debating whether I was professional or not! Must be doing something right.
One red card: In the dying minutes a defender from the losing team (who were not going to come back at that stage) decided to punch a goal-bound ball away. His own team couldn’t believe that he did it. Certainly one of the easiest to sell dismissal decisions I have ever witnessed!
It was a fun game and of course I got my trophy from officiating on the final, and it was nice to meet the various league officials who were present. It has hopefully also helped raise my profile and will lead to more opportunities in the future.
This was my first cup final. I have my second this weekend and I will be the referee in charge for it! I have worked in many referee teams now and this will be my first opportunity to be leading one…. very exciting!
I am privileged to have been appointed as referee in the main cup final for the Sunday league in which I officiate. It looks to be a challenging game by all accounts: The finalists ended up #1 and #2 in the top division. Thankfully I am to be provided with neutral assistants.
In addition, I am acting as Assistant in another league’s U17 cup final and that in conjunction with my recent county cup quarter an semi appointments means I must be doing SOMETHING right!
By some coincidence, I had two games today: One Sunday league, one U17s. Clear blue skies and the sun beating down meant it was going to be a challenging one from a stamina perspective as well.
The Sunday league game was a little niggly. I’ve had the home side quite a few times this season (“Doesn’t this league have any other refs nowadays?”) and the game ended 2-3 with the deciding goal coming in the final play of the game.
This brings us to the title of this blog entry. Sometimes with this level the players REALLY don’t expect any cautions to be issued and you can get comments like that one along with, “It’s just Sunday morning football”. This is something I don’t ascribe too. The problem is, if you start ‘bending’ (Or let’s be honest here: Blatantly disregarding) Law in this way you are being inconsistent from the very start. I do strongly believe in man management to handle problems but these are more for cutting off dissent and flashpoints between teams.
As an example there was a clear deliberate handball by a defender in the area. No-one disputed the penalty. This was also an absolutely clear caution for me. However, because of the players’ expectations as described above this did damage my match control a little. No such argument with a caution for some ‘afters’ following a challenge later in the game, however. In retrospect I still feel I was in the right for both of those: Players can’t pick and choose which Laws apply and neither should the referee!
Amusingly, I had the comment “This isn’t Sunday football” during the U17s game so let’s talk about that one now…
At this point the sun was at its peak and I was feeling it. I had already grabbed my emergency water from the car and the home team also provided me with some but I was having to dig very deep. It is great how you see a friendly face wherever you go though: One of the players was a fellow assistant referee on a supply league game recently. Great guy with a great attitude. He was also very honest and stated how his team had one of the worst disciplinary records in the league, complete with a recent game being abandoned! Hey, I love a challenge.
The game itself was excellent and reminded me why I love refereeing this age group: The skill level and attitude is typically very good indeed. There were three cautions in this one (Two for tackles, one for aggressive behaviour when retaliating) but all were accepted in good grace. I felt it demonstrated my tolerance level early on with the first two cautions as they came at the same time (tackle then retaliation)… I was thinking at the time, “Yeaaaah, nailed-on match control!”. I’m a little sad like that.
You see, the players at this level accept that the Laws have to be applied so there is no arguing with a card when they know a tackle is dodgy, or if they have just shoved an opponent (I still don’t understand the “This isn’t Sunday league” comment). This is normally when the managers and supporters (parents, girlfriends!) are encouraging a good spirit and you typically do not get that same support network with Sunday league adults.
I am learning to be ‘firm yet fair’ with cautions. The players may need a little educating in some leagues to fully accept them but I must keep up the self-confidence to issue them rather than back down in order to appear to be a nice guy. The youth games really help me realise when my approach is ultimately the right one: It’s a great training ground for open age.
I was happy to be assessed when acting as Senior Assistant Referee on the Combined Counties Football League at the weekend. This is a supply league and I am picking up a lot (good and bad) from working with the various referees.
The results of the assessment were extremely positive, especially with regard to my speed and fitness which is something I have always been keen on improving.
However, like a good breakfast sets you up for the day, so does bonding with the rest of the referee team at the beginning. If this doesn’t happen then it will drag people down leading to a spiral of decay which we really don’t want to happen! In other words, the quality of the team was linked strongly to the my performance and therefore the eventual assessment.
BE ON TIME: If anything sows ‘invisible dissent’ in a team it is one member arriving late, especially if they are not particularly apologetic for doing so. The others have made an effort to get there early or on time and there has typically been at least five days notice of the location and timings. If it starts to get close to the wire this will also cause nervousness in the team as they know they will be below full strength and have to call in a club-nominated official which will reduce match control effectiveness.
WARM-UP TOGETHER: It surprises me how often this does NOT happen (typically when older referees are leading the team). This is KEY in my opinion and I would ALWAYS do it. Not only is it important for bonding but it is vital for injury prevention and gives the right message to the players (“We take this game seriously”).
LOOK THE SAME: I liked this one: The referee had a collection of t-shirts with him that he gave us to warm-up in. The result? Looked like a team! Was a good feeling as well. You can also apply this to making sure you arrive in similar dress and even the same brand of refereeing kit if feasible.
SWEETS: Sometimes the changing room can resemble a buffet party. It’s nice when each member has brought along their own snacks (jaffa cakes? Sports drinks?) and make an effort to share them. You can extend this if acting as Senior Assistant by having boiled sweets with you and offering them to the benches if they are getting angsty… or perhaps if they are well behaved?! I’ve not tried this one myself yet but will report back on the results.
CARE ABOUT THE GAME: Blindingly obvious but if you want to gain the respect of the players then make the effort. Warm-up leads into this. From the moment you are leading the players onto the pitch be focused yet friendly and full of smiles. If the atmosphere is appropriate then take this into the bar afterwards as well!
I would love to hear about any other tricks and tips you have found to help with this! Horror stories also permitted!
