Close the fridge, will ya!

Seriously, it is basically mid April and I am still wearing my long sleeve kits with a couple of colors underneath to keep warm (my go to color underneath is yellow because the club I most work for uses it for their uniforms, so I end up wearing black or red as the outer color).


Rant aside, I worked 6 matches this weekend and there are three storylines I wanted to share with you. The first is a funny one. The first match this weekend was because I was at the field observing our younger core of refs and helping out. One ref was hurt and so I did his match while waiting for my 1pm match. It was a U6 match of the rec league. Loved every minute of it.

I did have a trying time with a little boy named Frank. At U6, you normally get a couple of kids that have not played soccer before and this was the case Frank. He thought soccer was football and he ran off with the ball, tucked under his arm at least three times. Once all the way to restroom area 100 yards away before his father tackled him. He also believed in causing some damage to teammates and opponents alike. He took down players left and right. I was close to actually carding the kid (only half serious) but his coach and father made it tolerable. Hopefully Frank figures out how it all works.

The second one is related to goal safety. Please make sure that the goals are anchored and/or have some sort of weight on them. We had an incident where some of the mobile goals were not really anchored well because of the rain and one of our referees checking the goal was able to tip it over with one finger. Thankfully someone was checking. Please do the same.

Finally, I worked with some referees this weekend that were interesting characters. The first was one that stated he had worked over 4,000 matches and his preference was 12-16 matches a weekend plus high school. He expected at least double the centers than ARs (so 2 centers per AR match given to him) and a minimum of 6 matches per day. More power to him but goshdarnit what a beating he takes both mentally and physically.

The second interesting ref story was one of a father/son combo where the father took his AR responsibilities very lightly and then in the center was absolutely the opposite. It certainly appeared that he did not appreciate an AR role at all. He did not run at all as an AR and ran only marginally more as a center (while still handing out plastic for relatively low level stuff).

That is all I have for today. Thanks for the emails and look forward to hearing from you all with comments, etc.

PBB - Parents behaving badly

Where are the worst soccer parents from? In a more travelled tournament than those I have worked before, I think I found the team that has the worst parents. They yelled, screamed, threatended and did a whole slew of other things that make them take the cake as far as I am concerned.

I do have to admit that the first half of their match between their team and another from North Carolina had to have been one of the worst officiated halfs I had ever seen. The guy in the center made me feel ashamed that I was on his crew, but I did back him up. The second half got better but it was too late as the damage was done. So who were these people? They were from eastern PA, just outside of Philadelphia it appears. And they tied 4-4. I'd hate to see them when they lose.

Money for nothing

Literally the above title is true. The weekend before last I was offered to ref a couple of premier leagues matches. I checked with the wife to make sure things were kosher and emailed back saying I was in at around 3pm that Friday. By 4:30 I was told that one of the teams was probably not going to come because they had been told about the change in venue too late for them to alter their plans, so they were not coming. By 5:30, I had been removed by the two matches and thought nothing of it (originally there were 3 matches with 2 crews in total and when one of the matches was suspended, they changed it to one crew for the two matches and I was not on the working crew).

On Tuesday I get a check in the mail for having been part of this email exchange. Apparently since the team that did not show was declared to have forfeited, all the monies due to the referees had to be paid. This was the first time I was paid for just saying I was going to be part of a match. 

Cool product - Soccer Shaving Cream for wall management

I have been meaning to write this blog post for the last couple of months, but I did not have all the information to present to you, so I did not write it up. I had bought a set of four sprays that help with wall management. I decided to try and use it for the first time during one of my more competitive matches this season, a U19 D1 girls match (which ended 3-3, so it was indeed competitive).

Anyway, the product is very cool. It is a spray that looks like shaving cream and comes with a cell-phone like holster. When a foul occurs where you need to set up a wall, you spray the stuff and the goo sits there for about a minute before disappearing. I only had to do it twice in that match, but it was funny to see the players react to it. I did let them know that it was coming in my pregame chat with the team and that I expected them to stand behind the line.

How it works: It does not need to be shaken, it works when you hold down the can (upside down of course!) and press the nozzle with both your index and middle fingers (there is a ledge on each side of the nozzle, so it is very simple). I recommend from about 10 inches above the ground, point it at the ground and spray a line where the players are to stand. It works on artificial turf as well as grass and doesn't leave a mark.

I had originally seen it on TV, on GolTV, in a match for the Copa Sudamericana. The ref had what looked like a cell phone on his hip. I immediately wanted to know what it was. And the reason that I had not posted it until now was the fact that I could not for the life of me remember what that site was where I had ordered it from. Until now. So, if you want to get your hands on the latest and greatest for those rougher matches (not really needed for U10 girls to be truthful) then get it from here: http://www.soccersprays.com/

On the site it has how to apply it and it works well. It also lasts quite a while, I bought a pack of 4 with the holster for around $30 and I am still on my first can as I only use it for U15 and above matches and there are not that many of them.

This is the can, when you ref, take the cap off

If you do decide to get it, let me know as I have not heard anyone else mention this stuff, either in forums or with fellow referees but I am curious to hear what your personal experience is with this tool. It certainly should help. I wonder what else it can be used for out on the soccer pitch. It has my vote as product of the year for 2010 as I did not know it existed before then.

Tomorrow I have a soccer convention so hopefully I will see what MLS and FIFA are pushing for this coming year. Till then.

Recert for 2011

Just had my recert class this Saturday. I have to get all my notes together before my next post, but the one point of emphasis was to be more vigilant with concussions and above the shoulders contact. Especially elbow to neck or head contact.

I scored a 98% with 2 questions wrong out of 75 (which I know is not 2%, it is more like 3% but that is what the instructor put on the sheet, so I am going with that). The first one was more of a trick question regarding dangerous play and the second was something of the same where a team with 7 players has another player leave the field without permission (but did not indicate whether the player left for good, or just stepped off the field to receive medical attention or to put an onside player in an offside position) and asked if you suspend the match because he did so and the team was now down to 6 (but without the knowledge of whether that player was returning shortly or not).

I think I would have still gotten the 7 to 6 player question incorrect, because I thought that if a team with 7 players had to go to 6 for any reason, the match ended right there, but if it is for a short while, like medical attention, the match can continue (fortunately it has not happened to me just yet!).

Once I have the time to gather all the minute things from the exam and handouts, I will post them here. Next week there is a youth conference I will be attending that should have more info on what they want us to focus on.

Watch Update

We are in the dearth of games due to winter so there is little to comment on. I can say one thing though as an update from the previous post. I found my old watch! More accurately, my daughter found it. Needless to say, now I don't like it as much as the new ones.

Not much else to report except for the upcoming conference I go to every year as well as my certification class and the high school ref gathering. Lots of stuff to talk about in the coming weeks. Hope everyone had a good holiday.

Watches

This past week, as I was preparing for my matches this weekend, I discovered that I could not locate my regular watch (and still have not been able to). I had bought my watch about 2 years ago at Walmart and had been happy with the purchase. It had something that I know some refs do not use, and that is a countdown function. That watch had cost me $15 or so and had a velcro strap, which made it easy to adjust. And though I know that I will find it at some moment, I realized Friday afternoon, that I was going to have to make an investment in getting another.

Some of the places online, make it a big deal that they have soccer referee specific watches, and I am sure that they are better than the standard ones I use. I know that there are ones that countdown and then count up once the time has been consumed so you know how much additional time you have added. There are others that look almost like those athletic stop watches that track and field people use and have huge numbers so that it is easy to read.

For me, I decided on going with 2 watches (I heard someone tell me that it is recommended to go with two just in case one goes bad and you do not have ARs that can back you up). So I trotted to Kmart and ended up buying two Casio watches. Not both the same because that would have been silly in case the design had a problem that I did not like. The two models I bought were a Casio W-752 and a Casio W-93H. Total cost was around $35 for both (they were running a special of sorts, regular price is more like $45 for both).

The W-752 has a long life battery (it said 10 years, but I am sure it is not that long) and had larger numbers, so I wear that one on my right (I am a lefty and use a wrist strap whistle on my left hand). I normally wear my watch on my right so that is where I go most of the time to consult how much is left. It has a countdown timer but no bells and whistles with regards to that countdown timer. Here is a picture of the watch:

The second watch is smaller (the W-93H) but I fell in love with it almost instantly. And why you ask? Because its countdown timer has a couple of features that I was not expecting (not for $15 at least). There is one to immediately restart, so that when it hits 0:00, it begins at 40, or 35 minutes, or whatever you were at. I can see this option working if you want to add time, and you say, ok, I am going to add two minuites, so we go to 33:00. I have not used that function yet (I did 4 matches this weekend, 2 in center and two as an AR). The other feature it has is awesome to tell you the truth. You can have it beep when the countdown timer hits 10 minutes remaining, 5 minutes and then every minute until 1, then every 10 seconds until 5 seconds, and then every second until it is done.

I find this feature to be very useful as I do not need to be looking. Today, when it beeped for 10 minutes, I already knew that was the 10 minute beep, the second one told me we had 5 remaining and I did not look at my watch until it started doing the 10 second chirps. To be truthful, I find the 10 second (at 50 seconds, 40 seconds, etc) to be overkill, but otherwise an awesome watch. The numbers are smaller, but still a great buy for $15 at Kmart. I might go get another one for when this one dies or cannot be located. I certainly hope that doesn't happen soon!