Another Milestone achieved

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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.