Yet Another Soccer Referee

Follow up from last week

2009-11-09T12:32:00.002-05:00

I still have to sort out some things from this past weekend, it was another good weekend for some decent soccer but I did want to follow up from last weekend on my comment about my son's match.

My son plays U10 travel and many times, I am asked to help as an AR in his matches. The match was a blowout and at one point with the match at 6-0 or something like that and me perched right in front of the visiting team's bench, my son's team plays a ball from defense that makes it past all their defenders (who were on the attacking half). There was one boy on my son's team perched at midfield and when the pass (or clearance) goes by, he takes off. He was clearly onside as he was right behind the midfield line and the ball passed him before he made his run, so I held my flag down. SIDE NOTE: As a non-paid AR, I asked the center if he wanted me to flag things as normal, as if I were a real AR or just help with the out-of-bounds stuff. He said to do the full thing.

When the kid makes the run for the ball, I start running down the line and from my back I hear, "Hey Ref that was..." It was the coach of the other team. I could not believe he was giving me lip about my non-offside call. So as I am running away from him, I look back and say, "Please coach, do not give me any of that" in a tone that was not very civil.

When the play finishes I run back and expect to hear a ton of "he was clearly off-side" and "how can you be an AR" etc. so I said before he could say anything, "I do not want to hear it" to which he answers, "but that was a great call, all I wanted to tell you is that you did very well in holding the flag down".

I need to stop being such a hot head. Another lesson learned.

Too bad I can't make them all cry

2009-11-04T10:41:00.002-05:00

This past weekend I worked both days with interesting stories on each day, mostly anecdotal stuff, nothing really hard core ref related, at least on Saturday. On Sunday (in my next post), there is more juicy ref content.

Saturday I was slated to work 3 matches, U12 and U10 boys in the local rec league. Not particularly complicated matches, but the interesting thing about rec matches is that the parents are always keeping score and that the disparity in the level of play is always something to consider since you want people to have fun but you have to be mindful that the really good players are going to stand out...

First story of the day was that I seemed to have a knack for making the boys cry. In the first match, one team has a breakaway and a defender runs stride by stride with the attacker and is yelling at him like a marauding Viking all the way down. The attacker does not flinch and scores, but after the goal, I told the boy that he cannot yell to attempt to distract the attacker and that in a regular match that would be a yellow card.

I am not sure if he misunderstood or if maybe I was not age-appropriate in my language (though my 10 year old son would have understood) but he immediately looked at me and started balling. I had to explain to the coach what I said to the boy and he did not return to the field till the second half. And without incident, so at least it was not that bad.

In the second match, there were two terribly mismatched teams. One was very good, with 2-3 players that could have easily played travel and the other was one that barely had the basic notion of what soccer was. On the latter team, there was one child who knew one thing, attack the ball, get the ball and the concept of not fouling in the process was somewhat fuzzy. I counted 5 fouls from him in the first half. In the second half, with him team down 3-1, he really started laying it on thick. When his foul count approached double digits, I told him I had just about had enough of his fouling (and in hindsight, I should have talked to him sooner) and then when he fouled again, I asked the coach to sub him out since this league does not permit yellow or red cards unless something terrible happens. He was subbed and started tearing up as he walked off the field. Fortunately, with only 3 minutes left in the match, he did not return.

For the last match of the day, I did not have any crier, so at least I had that going for me, but seriously, I have to make sure that I choose a lighter tone when addressing children. I guess I have that personality that can come off as gruff and the boys did not respond well to it. Another lesson learned.

As a side note, on the last match, it felt like we regressed into medival times or something similar. One the yellow team there were two boys with distinctly strange names. One boy was almost my height (5'9") and his name was Thor. Yes, as in Odin's son. And then there was another boy named Augustus. Nothing interesting about the match, but the names served as some comic relief as the rain started to come down towards the end of the match.

In my next installment, I will describe another learning experience I had in my son's travel match with the other team's coach.

Weather permitting

2009-10-29T10:22:00.003-04:00

It has been a rough time for soccer in the DC area. It seems that it is wet on the weekends. I suspect that in mid November, we will still be making up some of the matches that have been suspended this season.

I have reached another first, the suspension of a match in mid play. It was the 12 noon match of a U13 travel boys and it was raining at a steady clip. I left home around 11:20 and got to the field at 11:35 thinking that the match would be called off because of the rain. But to my amazement, the match prior to mine was being played. The field was grass and not turf, so that made it more interesting. On top of that, the field I come to find out had just been aerated so it had a lot of things going against it.

So I walk out to the field and I am already soaking wet, there are indicators that there will be a little pool or two soon and the field looks bad. One of the coaches wanted to play the other was reluctant but said that this match was a postponed game from a couple of weeks ago, so to please, please play it. I had the issue that I did not want to tear up the field but it seemed that I was outnumbered (although I know that I was the final authority on it).

The game was not good. Sloppy play, sloppy passing, sloppy field conditions. The blue team was 10 times better than the yellow team and they got a goal from their star player #53 early but after that, it was all ugly. One player on yellow was adamant on telling me where I missed all the calls. Halfway through the first half he slide tackles from behind (and I did tell the kids that slide tackling was risky given the conditions) so he gave me a present to calm him down, a yellow with a good chewing out as well.

In the end, he did finish the match but the only reason that happened was because I had to suspend it with 12 minutes left when we started looking more like water polo rather than soccer. Lucky for him I guess. But it was wet all around for me and we all know how much I love reffing in the rain!

Interesting call

2009-09-23T14:56:00.002-04:00

I am not going to bore you with the details of some of the games I have been assigned lately, a lot of U13-U14 girls and boys matches that are either very light or overly aggressive. But mostly, U13 girls, just moved into a large field, is like watching paint dry, they move the ball well enough, there is little contact and goals (rare as they are) are only scored within the 6 it seems. It has to be my least favorite age group.

There is one call that I will bring up during my center of a U15 girls match. The defender has the ball on the left flank and pressured by an attacker. The defender is facing her own goal and a teammate towards the penalty spot is calling for the ball. She passes it to her but then the keeper tells the teammate to back off and then proceeds to collect the ball with her hands. I blow my whistle as a passback but the gold team swarms me saying it was not intentional. And I had to think about it for an extra second. The intention to pass to the general vicinity of the keeper was clear, though she was probably not the intended target at the time of the pass, but I have to think full well that the keeper knew she was not allowed to pick it up. So in so many words, I explained it to the girls.

I knew I made the right call when my AR backed me up, but even more so when the coach of the team that was penalized did as well.

I have a couple of more stories from these last two weekends, just not enough time to detail it all out just now.

Three Week Recap

2009-09-12T20:43:00.002-04:00

Week 1

U13 and U14 boys on Saturday. Games are being played on a turf field with marking for soccer, football, lacrosse and others given the fact that there were white, yellow, blue and red/orange lines on the ground. The matches were nothing spectacular, but it was interesting that I called a PK on one of the matches I was the center and mistakenly used a football extra point line instead of the PK spot. The kick still went in, so no big deal, but still, something to learn. Also, on another match, the team was using yellow for the goalkeeper, and so we needed to change to another color, but one of the ARs had no other color. Not a good start for him.

Sunday was just U15 girls, nothing special there.

Week 2

U 15 boys on Saturday, very well played games, but one club's parents were obnoxious to the point of no return. As an AR in one of the matches that they lost, they gave me hell for not calling an offsides which I saw as onside. But their comments were to the tune of, "What do you expect when he has sunglasses". Like that is going to make a big difference, but yet, it lead me to realize that when you are doing the AR with the parents involved, it does not pay to carry a conversation with them as they can turn on you.

Week 3

The most boring two ARs I have done in a long time. I do not think I had to actually run at any time, just trot. Painful.

Back to the field

2009-08-27T12:41:00.002-04:00

It is that time again, when the pre-season tournaments abound and everyone is getting ready for some soccer. I received my assignments for this Saturday and Sunday, they are U14 boys and U14 and U19 girls. Eight matches in total, 5 as AR and 3 as center. No complaints there. I will only be able to see my son's first match unfortunately and if he gets to the final, perhaps see that one as well.

As for the matches and the team I am getting, I do not know them that well, so we will have to wait and see what we get. I am re-reading the USSF Laws of the Game as I normally do before the start of the season to make sure I have things down correctly.

Minor update

2009-08-24T14:03:00.002-04:00

Nothing too insteresting this weekend, there was a Saturday set of friendlies my son was participating in, and they were using older kids as referees. I volunteered to help out but there was no need. The only thing I wish these kids would have done better is to stay closer to the play and to blow their whistle louder. No one was sure if the ball was out, or what the calls were. But in the end there was little else to tell them, if someone had asked. I am not sure that they were registered refs to begin with, but it was all for friendlies and in the end it was just a warm up for the season.

But next week is looking good, I have a bunch of ARs and centers coming up, 8 for this coming weekend. U19, U13 and U14. Should be a good time. More to come.

Away for a while

2009-08-13T01:20:00.002-04:00

Not much to report on the refereeing front. To tell you the truth, I have not missed it that much. But in a couple of weeks, I return to the action with a tournament and that should be a good indication of how the season will go. I will fill you in as it happens. These last couple of months have been good though without soccer reffing to worry about, but the season is slowly approaching. My son plays in a couple of tournaments prior to the start of the regular season and the following weekend, I will get to see the matches and critique our fellow referees (hopefully on how well they did).

Second Season in the books

2009-07-07T21:49:00.002-04:00

Though technically, the end of the season is not until the end of July, for all purposes here, I am ending the season. I have a document where I keep all my matches that list time, date, location and other particulars to be able to say with some degree of certainly how many matches I have done at any given time. I also have a column for how much I am making for each match. That then gets summed up in another column. Once a check comes in, I note it and deduct it from the sum. Well, today the number between the payments per match and that of how much I have been paid is zero, so I am closing out the season.

I have a couple of season tournaments that I may be doing, but there is not much time to spare, in late August the season starts again, and I have to recertify before the end of the season, so there should be a lot going on. More on those topics in later posts.

For today, I want to give out some rough numbers on the second season and hopefully come to some conclusions and comparisons to the first.

Number of matches refereed: 52
Centers: 33
ARs: 19

I did most of my reffing with the local league here, and with my son in travel (as well as my daughter now dangerously close to entering that as well) I would say that for the time being, doing just the local club matches should be fine. Getting these many matches certainly kept me in shape, and I made some extra cash to help with these lean financial times. And I think I did pretty well doing what I needed to do for the good of the game.

I am going to see about setting goals for myself closer to the start of the new season, which could be a successful recert, aim for a Grade 7 upgrade, or help out more with other leagues, etc. I will let you know once I know exactly what that goal or goals are.

For now, it is some time to get back to work, as my day job has been brutal, and the kids. Enjoy them while they still want to be with their father. Reffing takes a back seat to that, any time.

Updating on a newer machine

2009-06-25T23:05:00.002-04:00

Before I go off on my soccer related incursion, I wanted to comment that I am writing this entry on a machine I put together that is running the beta version of Windows 7. It is really cool, fast and basically everything Vista should have been.

Ok, back to soccer. I had wanted to write up after the last match of the regular season and that final weekend where I had 5 matches, but I could not find the time with work being just unreal, so I am going to have to write about the two last weeks together and basically one specific thing, penalty kicks. In my two seasons, I had never had a game where I was reffing go to PKs and I wanted to get that out of the way.

On Saturday of the regular season, in the rec league, the U14 girls that I was reffing as an AR went to PKs on a 1-1 match. It was the postseason so they had to have a winner. In this contest, I was asked to work the center circle, so basically, I would coordinate the kickers and make sure that they were taking their turns, at the ready and backup for the scoring, just in case. It was fun, but little did I know that the following week would be more still.

This past weekend, I did a father's day tournament and when I got my assignments, it was a doozy, U19 Boys. I was thrilled as it meant that they would be good and there would be some decent action. I did six matches for the tournament, two centers and four ARs, but boy did I have an awesome experience at the center on Sunday.

Before arriving at the field, I knew that I had one of the finals for the U19 boys. As it turned out, I had the D1 final, and the teams knew each other well, had played twice already in the regular season and there was no love lost between the teams.

To make matters worse, I was still trying to overcome the experience from a couple of weeks ago when all the parents wanted to eat me up. One thing about this tournament was that many players at this age group were already men and they were playing in the U19 boys rec championship because it was much more financially viable than playing travel (or so I was told by a couple of people at the tournament). So in essence, these kids were probably just as good as the kids that did travel, but just did not have the means to pay for travel soccer.

Anyway, the game went well. I called it a little tighter than I would have (on Saturday I had one center say that at this age group he called practically nothing, and on Sunday, I had another center say that at this age group she called practically everything, so I went with something in the middle). And the orange team was far more physical than the Blue team. But the other thing that I did for them was to say out loud when I was not going to call a foul or call handling. I would yell "No foul, play on" or "No hands, play on" so that they would immediately focus back on the match and not at trying to get my attention to see if I had seen what they would be complaining about. This lowered their whining a bit (I got a lot more whining on my Saturday center and thought this would help, it did).

Blue scored first with 4 minutes left in the first half on a free kick and then Orange tied it up 4 minutes in to the second half. It truly was a great match. In the end they went to PKs and I froze when I was going to do the coin toss. I could not remember the procedure, so what I did was give Orange the chance to call it and they won the toss, so I let them choose to either kick first or second. Orange had the better goalie and they thought that they were better when it came to taking the PKs but Blue only had one stopped by the keeper while Orange missed two that hit the goalposts and out.

And finally, in my last center of my second season I had my PKs as a center. I am sure that I will rue most of those next however many PK shootouts I will have as a ref, but I certainly enjoyed this one. It was a great match played by two great teams and I was smack dab in the middle of it, so I got that going for me.

Funny note

2009-06-10T10:27:00.002-04:00

One thing I forgot from yesterday's rant, and that was that just for the second time in my reffing career (truly not that long), I was hit with the ball. The first time was back in January when the ladies league was in play and the ball basically grazed me.

This time, it was a full on clearance from one of the defenders in last match of the day that hit me halfway in the chest, shoulder and upper right arm area. One of the boys made a funny comment, "Handball ref!" He wasn't kidding!

Questioning my performance

2009-06-09T11:14:00.003-04:00

A tale of two days. Saturday was great from a complements standpoint and terrible from a physical standpoint. Sunday was just the opposite.

Saturday I did a couple of hard U14 centers and an AR as well. It was great, the first match was a good one between the two leading U14 teams. The first goal was scored 60 seconds in, where my AR was in the perfect position to see the ball trickle in to the goal. From my angle it did not look like it went all the way in, but he had the perfect angle, so that was good. Then with 3 minutes left and the teams tied at 1, we get a clear trip in the box and the home team slammed it home for a 2-1 win. I got a lot of compliments from both teams.

Second match was a 3-2 where I had the chance to call a goal on the line as an AR, and then with maybe 30 seconds left in the match, the team down 3-2 ties it up but the player was offside by half a step, if the one who had created the play had shot it himself, it would have been legit, but he passed it to the wide open (and in the offside position) attacker and that invalidated the goal. Not too happy from the players or fans, but the center thanked me for making the right call.

Finally the third match was a 6-0 blowout, but I got compliments because it was still a competitive game and because there was one player on the purple team that lost that did not have all his marbles. He was somewhat of a loose cannon. He would go in late, run his mouth and just generally make it a sour event for those around him. I spoke to him and the defender from the other team that were jawing it out to cut it out or get a card each. They shut up after that.

At the end of that match my knees were absolutely killing me, so I thought that Sunday was going to be bad, but I got up and felt fine Sunday. However, it was another story in terms of the matches.

The first one was an 8-1 blow out but the team losing had a coach that out of nowhere started yelling that his boys were getting fouled every time they ran to the ball. They were getting outplayed actually. And on top of it, #12 on Blue kept flopping, so the one time he does get fouled, I hesitated and the coach was on me. So I had to tell him that the reason I hesitated was that he had flopped the first couple of times and that it was difficult for me to determine if it was a foul or not given the history. He did not like that at all. Lesson #1, keep those opinions to yourself. I gained nothing by telling the coach and others that I thought #12 was flopping. Tell them that you were waiting to see if there was an advantage or something else.

The second match I had been warned was going to be a doozy and it was. An undefeated team going against another good team. The U11 boys had me on my toes. The first two goals were for the gold team that was undefeated. Then they scored again, and the purple team wanted an offside call that I just didn't see. I was not in the best position and from my angle the attacker came from behind the defender, but boy oh boy did the coach and parents from that side yell and scream bloody murder.

In the second half, the purple team gets one goal back and then with 10 minutes left, they get another. With the score 3-2, gold is attacking and there is a possible foul inside the box, I did not see a foul but because I was not in the best position. I was running down the middle and that angle did not give a clear view. I cannot call a foul if I do not see it. The problem was that there was one purple defender shielding me from the actual contact. So I did not call it. Lesson #2: Try and go wider, that way you have better angles across the field of play and can help with offsides as well to boot. Something that would have certainly helped with this match.

Then with a minute left, purple corner, it floats in and purple and gold jump for the ball. Purple had a striaght jump while gold defender came at an angle. Gold gets his head on the ball but also makes contact with purple. I did not see a foul but the parents of purple sure did (and btw, where was the team liason that each team is supposed to have to calm parents down? I hate having to tell parents to shut up.)

In the counter attack, gold scores again and they win 4-2 but I just did not know what to make of my performance. I want to improve, but at the same time, it was almost like I did not want to do it anymore, it was not worth it...

Much ado about nothing

2009-06-02T13:06:00.002-04:00

No idea if the title is spelled correctly, so my apologies if it is. On to the fun stuff from this weekend, oh wait, there was not much as my three matches for Satuday were cancelled out. And I did not have anything lined up for Sunday as I had a prior commitment. I found out that the league I was supposed to ref in does not have any rain days built in (at least for this season) so those games are lost completely. Oh well.

I did get a chance to see my son play and it is funny that I almost reffed the game as the actual ref showed up 5 minutes to kick off. It was in a weird place, not your typical park and it was out of the way for us as the visiting team (over an hour away from home) but the fact that he did not show up until right before kick off really indicated that he was also having trouble finding the place. Regardless, it turned out ok. He did not have the proper equipment, but it was good enough. At least he did figure out to change his shirt color when he saw that one team was wearing yellow. The one thing that really kills me about my fellow refs is situations like this, but this person switched to blue when he saw yellow on red (and one goalie was black while the other was green, so it turned out to be perfect).

In the other field, in a U11 match that was much more intense, the ref also had yellow playing white and he was wearing yellow. He stopped play about 5 minutes into his match and went to his bag. I thought to myself, well, better late than never, but when he returned to the field, he was carrying flags for volunteer ARs and still the same yellow jersey. Not professional at all. I have to insist, bring at least 2 colors (yellow and black) so at least you have the possibility of not screwing it up, with 3 you can play without any issue and only conflict with goalkeepers. At a certain point, you have to realize that you are no longer reffing rec leagues anymore and that you either should take it seriously or not do it at all. Maybe some day, I will become uncaring, but still, it is about doing a job right.

So have at least 3 shirts (yellow and black for sure, and if you do not have any other, get green as there are few teams that use that color). Most teams are Blue, Red or White (in that order, from my experience. And have some fun out there, but with the proper attire.

Heat of the moment

2009-05-26T22:08:00.000-04:00

And hot it was this weekend. Six matches overall, 2 on Satuday (a U10 girls and a U9 boys that were nothing spectacular). I did almost red card a boy in the U9 match. Two fouls both fairly similar and heavy handed on the same attacker. I carded him on the first and probably should have done the same on the second but they were already down 4-1 and the second one was a penalty on top of it, so I could not bring myself to yellow card the player again.

On Sunday, things picked up a little more. Two U13 girls matches, one as a center and one as an AR. The center one started off very interestingly as the blue team attacked and had a goal I had to call back because they literally ran over the keeper. They then scored first with a little less than 4 minutes to play in the first half but in the span of 2-3 minutes, yellow got two goals and then sealed it with a 3-1 win.

In the U11 boys matches I had that afternoon, I could tell that they were starting to try and play the ref, as one boy seemed to have missed a shot as a defender went to challange him and he went down yelling he was hurt, etc. and that the defender had fouled him. I had to tell him that I did not see a foul unfortunately. A couple of minutes later, with the game 2-1, the same attacker and defender go at it but this time I see the defender take out the legs in the box, PK for white who is down 2-1. The keeper gets a couple of fingers on the ball and it hits the crossbar and falls into his hands. On the counter, the blue team gets a PK of their own (stupid -as in excessive- foul right on the line of the box and they do convert, to make it 3-1 and game over.

All in all, some of the benefits of this tournament were that we got drinks and food included and that we were paid right after our last match. My total was just shy of $200. Not bad with these benefits.

Swift Justice

2009-05-20T22:38:00.002-04:00

I just checked my email and saw one from the Commissioner of the league from the problem parent. He emailed me let me know that the parent has been suspended for two matches. I really hope it teaches him to value what is important. I am rooting for him.

Flurry of activity

2009-05-19T11:42:00.002-04:00

These last 24 hours have generated quite a bit of work for me because of my dismissal of a parent that I commented about in my previous post. I was asked by the assignor for the field that I was at on Sunday to include a detailed run down of everything that was happening leading up to the incident and then the exchange as best as I could remember so that he could forward it on to the discipline committee for the league.

In my initial comment card (the one where you write down the final score, and send that in to the league) I included what I could but of course the space allocated is not really much at all. In the email I went into a lot more detail (more than in the post) as I knew who the player was and could figure out that it was the father or caregiver of that player. I submitted that Sunday night and Monday night I received an email where I was CCed that contained the assignor's comments plus my rundown of the events.

Immediately, I get an email from the R/D Commissioner asking if the threat that the disgruntled parent had uttered had made me feel fearful of my physical safety. It had not, but I suspect that if I had said yes, a bigger wave of problems would have befallen this person and the team in general. Also, he commented that I could have terminated the match if I did feel like the threats were on the physical side. At the time of the match, it did not cross my mind, but afterward I did think about it. To be truthful, the kids did not deserve it.

And then I get a couple of emails from people on the local club board to state how well they thought I handled the situation. It appears that there were plenty of people that were there who have some influence. Oh well, who knows, my stock may be rising! More to come on this as I have it but it certainly generates a lot more work that I would have expected. And better yet, more blog fodder.

Another Milestone achieved

2009-05-18T13:45:00.002-04:00

Not one that I wanted to ever say I reached, but it was done nonetheless. It was the sending off of a parent. Here is the story:

Halfway through the second half with the blue team up 4-1 and pressing hard to get even more a parent from the team winning all of a sudden starts going ballistic on me, yelling at the top of his lungs that there was a foul on the play. The play in question was a pass that one kid from the blue team chipped over to another who tried to volley and missed the ball, with no one from the other team even within a yard of him.

I walked over, had a lengthy conversation with him that ended with me saying "Would you rather watch the rest of your son's match here on the sideline or in the parking lot?" He said "Try me." I sent him on his way, and all the while he was walking off, he said fairly vulgar things. And there were threats of legal action if his son was injured. I documented it of course, spoke with the assignor who was not there and there was a parent who came over and said that he had seen the three matches and that I had done a good job, that there weren't enough refs with the guts to send off parents when they went ballistic.

The other two games I will write about later if I have the time, but there was nothing spectacular about them compared to this one. I did do a U11 Boys D1 match, and boy, they were a pleasure to watch compared to the D5 game that this incident originated from. The ball control, the dribbling, the crisp passing into space not at the person. I enjoyed it. And the bonehead parent did not come to mind at all until I was done with my three matches.

Next weekend is a tournament, and I have 6 matches total (2 Saturday and 4 Sunday). But hopefully the parents will not be as uptight...

On tap

2009-05-13T22:06:00.003-04:00

This weekend could be good, a nice one in terms of the forecast and certainly with 3 matches for me on tap. All U11, 2 boys and one girls. I will post more after the matches and hopefully they are good ones...

One game, no goals

2009-05-10T11:02:00.002-04:00

If there was a 0-0 ever written before the game started, the one I did yesterday was the one. U14 girls on a huge field. One team would try to advance by passing and the other with boom-ball.

The only interesting thing was that the center ref said a couple of interesting things, one: -that calls in the box were his, not ours and that calls on our side out of touch were our responsibility and that he would back us up. Still there was little in terms of action. Maybe one chance to score each.

Also, he called every possible handling call. I agree that those balls that go for 30 yards and then hit a hand should be called but if someone stikes it and the opponent is right there, hits the hand unintentionally, I do not call it but he did.

Still nothing else to comment, fairly lame game.

More rain on Sunday

2009-05-06T13:18:00.002-04:00

Saturday's promise of rain made it evident that Sunday was going to be a soaker, and it was. The game I had was an AR for a U11 match. I am not sure why exactly we have ARs for such low level games (it was a 3-0 but it should have been something like 10-0). One team just had their stuff together and the other could not put together two passes. They rarely crossed midfield.

It was just cold and wet enough to be uncomfortable and the non-challenging nature of the match made it all worse. The one positive aspect was that the other AR mentioned that I was too loose with my flag, as in, not keeping it at my side when not making a call (throw in, offside, goal kick or corner).

That alone was worth the miseable time. I was soaked after the match, but I had to stay as my son played immediately after. Fortunately the rain let up at the start of his match and did not resume until his match was over. So that made it 6 matches for the weekend. Too many in my book, especially 5 in one day. Not planning on doing that again.

This weekend looks tame, two adult AR matches on Saturday afternoon and that is it. On Sunday, it is Mother's day and there are two women I must tend to, so no reffing then.

Painful reminders

2009-05-03T08:31:00.002-04:00

That is what you get the morning after when you do 5 matches on Saturday. My legs ache quite a bit but in a strange way, it feels good.

The first two matches were adult league matches in a very well kept field about 15 minutes from home. What is interesting is that those fields are well kept because they normally close them at the first hint of rain, and yesterday we had a few sprinkles, and a constant threat of showers with thunderstorms all day long that never materialized. Anyway, the games were tame, but they were interesting plays. One involved me where I signaled an offside, and the center (the same one that I helped with his 8 to 7 assessment late last season) signals me down. He is so laxidasical in his motions that he really never gives off a air of control, though his matches never really get too out of hand.

At halftime he tells me first that it was a direct pass from a goal kick and that is why he flagged me down, then he says that it was actually a pass back, so what was it, a direct goal kick or a passback, because it can't be both. And to be truthful, I cannot be 100% sure myself, but I do not think it was either.

The other interesting thing was that the other AR was mimicking my calls all the time, I would signal for a goal kick and he would do the same. I would signal throw in and he would replicate, just weird.

In the afternoon games, they were all very tame. The league is played on huge turf fields and 13 year olds have a hard time scoring as they run out of gas before getting to the goal. In the first match, the game ended 1-1 and one team got like 6 calls for using their hands. The girls kept putting their hands in akward places and one time, the defender tried to chest it down and somehow her arms were over her head and the ball rolled over the arm. I had no choice but to call a penalty. The interesting part was that the team defending the penalty tried to make noise and shout to the penalty taker. I put a stop to that, but the penalty kick sailed over the crossbar.

The other games were also llow scoring affairs, both 1-0 with goals coming over a keeper flub and an offside trap gone wrong. In the one where I was a center, one of the players yelled out a bad word, where I heard it. He was the best player and I carded him but only a yellow. I did not feel like the game needed a red card at all. It turns out he was yelling it to his sister for taunting him when he missed a free kick. Funny how these things play out.

So this morning I am aching and have one more match to go. And it is rainy, gloomy, not exactly the type of day I wanted to have to play, so hopefully something gets suspended. Wish me luck...

A bunch of great matches and one really rough one

2009-04-29T22:46:00.002-04:00

Last Saturday, I had 4 good matches, U10 boys and a bunch of U8 matches as well. Those went fine. I felt confident with them. I also had a U12 girls that ended with one team angry at me that I did not call enough fouls against Blue "17" whom they called a fouling machine. I did call 3-4 fouls on her but they wanted every single call. On top of it, it was a close game, 1-0 for Blue and I had to stop the match twice in the second half for serious injuries (ironically, Blue suffered the injuries).

Anyway, I found myself second guessing after the fact. Should I have called more fouls? I did not see them to tell you the truth, but it bugs me if I did miss something important.

I have three ARs this weekend, two on Saturday, adult league and one on Sunday as well as two Centers on Saturday. Hopefully I can put this match in the past and move forward.

Is this already getting to me?

2009-04-21T17:39:00.002-04:00

I had read on other blogs how those people that ref get to a point when they start getting tired. This weekend, it hit me. I was getting tired of these matches! I certainly hope this feeling was a fluke, and maybe it was because I was not feeling well on Saturday, but it is something I cannot avoid. More to come later but I hope to be more positive in the next post.

Anyway, 3 matches this weekend, two ARs and one C. Nothing terrible to talk about, excpept I worked with one ref that I think has a good style, kind of proper, kind of gruff and kind of no-nonsense. Would love to work with him again.

Back from a rest

2009-04-14T22:03:00.003-04:00

It has been a couple of weeks and I am back. I did not have time to post my wrap-up from two weeks ago, so here it goes, after a break from a little bit of everything (work mostly).

The night before the start of the season, a friend asked me to go see the NCAA finals and we had some drinks. I am a light-weight for sure and the next morning, I was paying for it dearly. It sucked basically. A splitting headache that did not go away till well after the morning matches were over.

Maybe that is why I handed out three yellow cards that morning! Anyway, the games were interesting in the sense that the first match was between U12 D2 boys and they were good. The match ended 2-1 in favor of the local team. Well played, two out of character challenges that earned yellow cards (one for each team) but in general, well played. The first goal was scroed on a borderline offensive foul, the defending coach certainly thought so, but it seemed fair enough to me, so it counted.

In the second match, there was a superior team and an inferior team, but the superior team had 7 players (in U12 it is 8v8) and the inferior team has 4 subs to boot. So one team was always fresh and the other had to run a lot more. Nothing too critical in this match except one of the boys on the 8 boy team fell while the ball was rolling out of bounds for a corner kick and just reach out and grabbed the ball while in play (beside the corner flag). It must have been a brain fart on his behalf, but it was intentional handling, so in the book he went.

The other one was the 7 boy team had a nice play where it was lobbed and it seemed like a one on one but the attacker never got control of the ball, the goalie came out and they collided. It really did not look like a penalty to me or a foul on the attacker. It was a weird case of a collision where both players were going for the ball and were unaware of each other in some weird way. I could not bring myself to call it one way or another, so after the players were tended to, I had a dropped ball. The attacking coach had other things to say, but hey, what do they know, right? In the end that game went 0-0.

This weekend I have 3 U14 matches, two ARs and one center. Should be another interesting set of matches. See you out in the field.

Looking forward to this weekend

2009-04-04T00:31:00.002-04:00

It is late, and I am tired after a brutal week at work, but I am excited about the start of the season this weekend. Regardless, I have done some matches already, the day in and day out type start this weekend.

I am happy that my strategy to work with more local people this season seems to be working out. One assignor (the one that assigns for the turf fields 5 miles from home) states that he has me on matches pretty much all spring long. He has me down for 7 of the weekends. And I was just assigned matches for the adult league close by as well. That works for me because the money is great and it is not 35 miles away like I used to do for the other adult league.

Anyway, hope to be able to represent well this season and to pick up the number of matches I do this season.