Sunday, March 29, 2009

Another tournament weekend

This weekend, one of the local clubs had a huge tournament. Advertised as a massive tournament with many teams, it turned out to be more of a fizzle instead of a celebration of soccer. The reason, the weather.

At the start of the day on Saturday, we arrive to see my son's morning match and find out that the start has been delayed 30 minutes because the field (which was really the outfield of a baseball field) had a part that was not ready for play (the small part that was dirt infield along one of the touch lines. The county workers were dropping a ton of sandlike substance that was called something like Game Ready sand and promised to harden soft infields soaked in water. It was not raining, but rather a light drizzle. And to boot, all matches were reduced to 20 minute halves (which was enough as the final score was 6-4).

We went home and then I headed out to my field for my 4 matches. I arrived, met the field marshall and got my assignments and my gift (a shirt from the tournament). I then met up with my counterparts for the four matches, a father/son duo. The father was certainly a stand up guy, very good at maintaining control of matches and an all around good guy. His son was doing his first tournament and he did better than I expected given that it was his first tournament.

To note on the four matches I did:

Match one, I was an AR, and it was nothing terrible, except that I fell due to the field and the line being in such a muddy shape. I actually fell flat on my back and the game had to be stopped for a minute or two while I caught my breath again (it was really embarrasing, but it also hurt too!).

Second match was my first as a center and it was a blow out. 4-0 in 40 minutes of soccer and it was evident that one team was outclassed. Still I got a lot more gamesmanship from the winning team than from the team that should have been looking for an advantage.

Third match I was an AR again, and fell again. It was a weird game, the better team started winning with two goals and then the other team just pushed hard forward and got the tie at the end. At the end of the game, the team that tied had a breakaway and the ball gets stuck in the mud. The attacker, who had a step on the defender, fell on the ball, and the defender caught up. The ref called dangerous play as the ball was under the player and his crown jewels. The coach went ballistic, but the center was right.

Finally, the fourth match was an entertaining 0-0, but the first thing of note was the cards. One player on the red team was good but he threw his body around and around. I cautioned him with 10 minutes left in the first half. He had commited 4 fouls up to that point. 5 minutes into the second half, he took down someone from behind and so it happened, I pulled out my yellow again, and then the red. First time I ever had to do that. Then white commited a couple of stupid fouls, and had to caution them as well, but it was a good game in the end.

To conclude, the field was unplayable by the end of the day. To the point that Sunday schedule for all non-turf fields were cancelled despite being a beautiful day. So one day of soccer ruined fields for all season all over the area. I am sure the organizers of the tournament are proud (the reason it was played to begin with was to not have to refund teams their money).

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Scheduling smeduling

It was bound to happen, schedules came out for my son's league and now everyone wants to tie down the refs they plan to use immediately. I am amazed at the amount of commitment some of the regular season assignors want. This season, instead of trying to get games all over, and especially get games right before or after my son's matches, I decided to try closer to home. The closest one, basically assigns for one park, and not for a league. It gets really interesting. Anyway, I basically told him that I would give him first crack at my schedule and he already gave me two matches for the 4/5 weekend when everything gets going.

The other assignor I am looking forward to working with has some games on Saturday's, which is good and have taken a couple from him. I am not sure that my strategy will work, but I guess I will noodle it though and figure out if it makes sense. I don't like doing many games in a row, but at the same time, one match only sometimes does not do it either. Time will tell, but from what I see now, it will let me work better for the fall, in the sense that I will know which method works best. If I get to 40 matches, then it will be just fine. If I fall short, I will have gained knowledge on how best to work the system at least.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Figuring out assignors

So far, for tournaments, I have been able to figure out two of my assignors. They each have a certain method of working with their referees and it is fun to see how they always come to the same results. It must work for them, otherwise, they would change, right? At least the similarities comes into play when determining schedules around my son's games.

The first of two assignors has a bunch of emails going out to a list of people and when everyone replys with their availability, he hands out assignments. What is interesting in these two times I have worked for him, is that he gives me the backup role on the fields where my son plays. I have done two tournaments with him and have yet to ref a match for him. He tends to assign me the backup role. I almost reffed one match this weekend but the ref made it just in time. So 0 for 2 with him. Still, I do not mind being backup as it is paid to watch games basically.

The other assignor has the opposite tendancy. Since she assingns based on time and has no real idea when specific teams play, she intentionally puts me in places where I cannot have my son's games. I guess it works for her. What is interesting is that for this coming tournament, there are a truckload of teams coming to town (at least 250 would be my guess) and she does not appear to work with backup refs. At least I never was asked to back up in her tourneys. Interesting dynamics.

So next week, it is on, 7 matches, 3 centers and 4 ARs. It will be interesting for sure to see if I can keep up with all that reffing. A test of willpower, so to speak.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Tournament Weekends

This last weekend, I was able to do two AR matches in a tournament for girls. The age group I had was U14 and they were both rather blah in terms of the outcome. Both ended 1-0 but were well played (probably 4 fouls altogether between the two matches).

What I did take away and hope to implement when I am a center in the near future with a full crew at my disposal is the contact between the center and the AR. Both centers I had gave a lot of visual okays with the thumbs up and when a ball was divided and then out of bounds, if they saw it better than I did, they would indicate in some minor way, which way to give the throw. I liked it because it certainly made it look like we were a team. Other than that, it was a somewhat somber, ho-hum type of weekend in terms of matches.

This next weekend, I am backup for the tournament, and I will probably not get any matches, but will at least be able to be paid for watching some soccer. And the weekend after that, I get U14 boys for 7 matches. That should be fun.

More to come in the next couple of days. I really wanted to start reviewing some of the things that I bought, like whistles, shirts, etc, but it has been far too busy at work to dedicate even a moment to that, so when I get 5 minutes, I will make sure to write up an entry.

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Scrimmage from hell

The season is starting to get into gear and to that effect, my son's team had a pair of scrimmages this past weekend. I have been chomping at the bit to get some matches under my belt before the season starts and asked if I could ref these scrimmages to get started on that. As you may recall, I had done a couple of matches in the off-season (one for the ladies league and another as an AR for a friendly of a U-16 girls match).

We arrive at the field and after the warm ups, the game gets underway. My son's team is attacking in the first part of the match and after a pass where I truly deem the attacker on-side, I get a ton of howling from the other team's parents for off-side. I allow the play to develop and when the goal-kick is granted, I walk over to the parent to explain how a one man ref is different than a 3 man crew and that angles are hard when you are not on the line, so if there is any question as to one's offsidedness (not a word, I believe), I will probably not call it. I tried to be cordial and not allow it to bother me. Side note: Annoying parents really get to me as a ref. Sure we make mistakes but I am in no way trying to work a game to ones favor. If anything, I would be more tough on my son's team than a regular ref would because of the fact that I do not want to be perceived as favoring them at all.

Anyway, the reply I get from the parents is to look harder at off-sides and that they want to make sure the kids learn the right way to play. I understand that, but if it is a life lesson that we are trying to get here, how about behavior towards an official? Yeah, did not think that was part of their thought process.

Match goes on uneventfully and the second team comes on to replace the first team (so my son's team stays on the field and plays another team for the second half). The game was much tighter than the first, little in terms of scoring chances and a lot more friction. The other team scores and my son's team pushes harder to tie. They break away and have a one-on-one with the goalie when a defender tackles the attacker from behind just outside of the box. I blow the whistle hard and announce that in any other match, this type of act is a send-off offense. But I do not show a card at all (because it was a scrimmage after all and I thought this was not to be called so tight as a regular game). The boy walks off crying because I found out after making the announcement that he had hurt himself in the tackle. Lesson learned was that I should not be so quick to react (life lesson here, people) and let him come up and speak to him more quietly. It is almost as if I forgot that these kids are 8 or 9, not 14 and know what they are doing.

In another precious sideline incident, while the match is still 1-0, a ball is kicked around the goal line and it hits the hand of one of the defenders. Of course, the same parents start yelling "hand ball", "penalty" and a slew of other things. It certainly was not intentional so I let play go on but at the next stoppage, I had them hold the throw and walked over to those parents and told them that I had enough of their comments. In a scrimmage for crying out loud. I can't wait to see what this team will do when it really is on the line.

Anyway, that was it, a wild one for a scrimmage. I have two ARs coming up this Sunday, for a tournament and I will be on the U14 girls line. We will see how that plays out, but I bet they will be better behaved than these people were this past weekend.