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.
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