The other side

No, no one died, but I did end up coaching a bunch of games for my daughter's team these past couple of weekends because of coaching conflicts. While most games were fine, I did have an issue with one game. I know there are two sides to every story, but this one was extreme.

We had to drive out to the boonies (I won't say where, because apparently there aren't too many referees in that area and so the referee of this game might be able to identify themselves in this post, which is not my intention). Once we got there, the referee started off nice but fairly quickly started calling questionable calls. A lot of hands on the back calls (all on us) and creating separation calls by using arms. It was interesting because the other team was quite a lot larger so the use of arms was somewhat worthless if it was indeed happening (I did not see what he was calling).

As the game went on, we got a goal and then the center calls a PK on us (again, a weak hands on back call). At this point foul count was 6-1 or so against us, yet I had already had to go in twice onto the field to help and injured girl off the field (again they were larger and did commit fouls that he did not call).

During the execution of the PK, the AR on the coaches side who should always be on the right of the midfield line (and I am to the left) starts standing in front of me, I am almost to our defensive 18, so he is a good 25 yards on the wrong side of midfield. As I move to get a better view of the PK, he moves in front of me. I tell the STAR AR to move to midfield. He ignores me and continues to stand in my way. The PK is missed but I ask the center to get the AR away from my sideline since he should never be close to my side. The center told me that on a PK it makes sense to get close. Side note, as a trail AR, I have never had to go further up the field than midfield when PK is not on my side.

In the second half, after we are now down 2-1 thanks to quite a bit of tilting of the field the ultimate in vindictive refereeing rears its ugly head. I had gone in 2-3 times already because of injuries to my girls. Another really hard tackle, and a girl of ours is rolling on the floor in obvious pain. Parents on my team have been going ballistic for the better part of the second half due to the discrepancy in foul criteria. I come onto the field and as I am helping my girl off, I tell the referee that someone is going to get hurt if he doesn't protect the girls. He tells me that he will dismiss me if I speak to him again while on the field. And to make things worse, I am walking off with the injured girl and he restarts play without letting me put in a sub. When the ball goes out for our corner kick I tell him that I want to put in a sub. He states that not right now, and that this should teach me to talk to him when he doesn't want to hear it.

At the end of the match, we found the tying goal which was really a victory in my book. The center took off running before I could talk to him. I was going to recommend another line of work. I have reported the referee to the league but what I was told informally was that there are so few referees in that area that he is still needed. Very unfortunate.