Help needed for refereeing research

Hello refereeing community.

We are seeking your help in relation to an ongoing research project which is aiming to present a typical experience of being a male football referee. We hope that this research will help both neophyte and experienced referees better appreciate and understand the many tensions and social dilemmas that characterise this vocation. As part of this process, several researchers from Buckinghamshire New University have interviewed numerous referees from various levels (7-3). From these interviews, we have created several short scenarios that are designed to represent the typical experiences of a male football referee, from pre- to during- to post-game. While these are still work in progress, we invite you to comment on how these vignettes may be similar (or not) to your own experiences of practice. Please note that we will be adding additional scenarios in due course, with the intention that it will eventually tell the tale of refereeing a football match.
When making comments, please specify which vignette you are referring to.

Thanks in advance for your help, we look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Doubts, fears, and worries
As Gallin approaches the junction, he glances at the brown road sign. A block white arrow points to the left and Old Leaf Playing Fields is stated in clear, distinctive, and ‘friendly’ white typeface. It prompts Gallin to think about the game ahead. The butterflies, which have occupied his stomach since the moment he woke, begin to flutter intensely.
‘How will I deal with the first challenge?’ ‘Will I get the big decisions correct?’ ‘How will I deal with the inevitable abuse?’ ‘Will I have to send someone off?’ ‘Will I meet everyone’s expectations?’
In an effort to tame his ever increasing levels of anxiety, Gallin engages in some positive self-talk: You’ve got nothing to worry about. Think about last week; you bossed the game, you had the respect of the players, they believed in your decision making. You’ve got the club marks and you’ve been getting good feedback from the FA observers. You’re at this level because others believe in you. Just do your normal thing and everything will be fine.
It is good advice, but it offers little reprieve. The closer Gallin gets to the ground, the more nervous he gets.

Banter, bitching, and smelly toilets
The referees’ changing room has that distinctive changing room smell; a mixture of grass, heat rub, boot leather, and sweat. Sam, Trevor, Darryn, and James are already settled in their regular spots. Like Gallin, they are all community based football referees. And like Gallin, they all have a match to officiate today.
As Gallin enters the room he gets the usual ‘Good afternoon, ****s-a-lot’ from Trevor.
‘Already?!’ Gallin retorts.
‘Don’t listen to him, he gets just as nervous as we do’, Sam steps in.
‘I can smell’, exclaims Gallin, wittily making reference to the stench coming from behind the toilet cubicle door.
Laughter fills the room.
‘Whatever! It’s the curry from last night’.
Trevor’s response is greeted with further ripples of laughter.
‘Anyway, James, what happened to you last week?’ Darryn pipes up.
‘Had a stinker, that’s what’, Trevor gentle mocks.
‘**** off, Trevor, it wasn’t that bad. I still think it was a penalty’, James immediately reacts.
‘So you don’t need these?’ Darryn playfully asks, while holding out his pair of glasses.
‘Ah, piss off you lot’, James sighs.
Everyone laughs.

Polite smiles and thank yous: Negotiating the early test
Gallin strides towards the home team manager. His polished boots and ironed kit glisten in the late afternoon winter sun. He appears confident, self-assured. On the inside however, he is anxious, nervous; all too aware that how he shows himself to the manager will affect the atmosphere in the game and maybe even the Club Marks he receives.
‘Good afternoon, please may I have your team sheet?’ Gallin asks in an assertive tone.
The manager pulls out a scrunched up piece of paper from his tracksuit pocket and hands it to Gallin.
‘Thank you, I very much appreciate that’, says Gallin with a polite smile.
‘No problem’.
‘And the match ball? Do you have one?’ Gallin inquires in a courteous manner.
The manager bends down and picks up the semi-inflated football that is next to his right foot, ‘Here, you go, ref’.
‘Seriously? You know that ball is flat’, Gallin inwardly thinks, while accepting the ball with grace. That is, he politely says ‘thank you’ with a smile.
Gallin positions his hands on either side of the ball and gives it a good squeeze. ‘Could you put a little more air in this for me, please?’
‘Are you sure, ref? Seems fine to me’, the manager retorts, wearing a wry smile.
Gallin politely smiles back, ‘IFAB law number two states that the match ball must be of a pressure equal to 0.6 – 1.1 atmosphere at sea level’.
The coach nods in recognition, ‘You know your stuff then, ref?!’.
‘I try’, Gallin politely replies with a broad smile.

Crossing the white line
Twenty-yards from the white line, Gallin snorts a shot of invigorating wintry-fresh air, reviving and stiffening his whole face and covering the walls of his lungs like a frost. He exhales rapidly through pursed lips. His stride becomes more deliberate, injected with a pronounced machismo; long and regular. He wraps the strap of his whistle around the fingers on his left hand and pulls it tight, then pats his breast pocket for the umpteenth time to feel the shape of his cards, notepad, and pencil. A spattering of onlookers line the pitch, laden with winter-ware and chary and censuring glowers.
‘Get your game-face back on’. Gallin scolds himself. He turns his head and, with an assured smile, meets the eyes of the closest spectator. ‘Afternoon. It’s another cold one’. He says with a controlled stridence, inviting the spectator to at once break his steely frown.
‘Afternoon, ref. Are we ready?’
Gallin looks down to the white line brushing the toes of his boots, and with one last constriction of his sphincter he looks up again and steps over onto the pitch. ‘Let’s do it’.

The insignificant mistake
Blue Number Four scoops up the ball and wipes away the moisture in a makeshift pouch in front of his shirt whilst hastily scouting the pitch for an available and well-positioned teammate. Gallin blows again on his whistle. ‘Red throw. It’s red ball’, he says with some conviction.
The spectators exchange looks and a murmur of bewilderment encircles the pitch. An air of displeasure radiates from the Blue players and wraiths across the frosted grass to Gallin’s lonely position. ‘Maybe I got that one wrong,’ he thinks to himself, gently chewing the corner of his bottom lip and replaying the decision in his head. ‘My position wasn’t great, looked to have come off Blue but I didn’t have a clear line of sight. ****!’
‘Make a mistake there, do you think, ref?’ Asks Blue Number Four ****ily as he jogs by.
‘Yeah, perhaps, but that’s the first I’ve made, you’ve made five already.’ Gallin retorts with a wink and a smile. He senses some relief when Number Four grins back. He got away with this one, it didn’t really matter. But the next one might.

Crossing a different line
Gallin blows on his whistle and straightens his arm out to the side to signal the direct free-kick. Number Six responds by throwing both arms in the air and spinning round to face the referee. ‘What the ****, ref?’
‘What? I got that right, don’t you think?’ Gallin retorts with a pert smile. The player almost smiles back, momentarily forgetting he is should be mimicking outrage at the decision against him. Of course, the home spectators protest as well but the short and barely audible chorus of opposition peters out as quickly as it had begun.
‘That’s a ****ing joke, innit, ref?’ Yells one slightly more committed observer. Gallin allows himself a raised eyebrow and an inconspicuous sigh before once again signalling the free-kick.
IFAB Law 12 – Fouls and Misconduct, Subsection 3 Disciplinary Action (Sending-off Offence) ‘using offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures’. It was a statute embossed on the mind of every referee, easily and perfectly declaimed whenever the need arose, and yet in practice Gallin found his mandate considerably more knotty and ill-defined. The fact is he felt not offended, insulted nor abused, at least not anymore. He’d become habituated, not indifferent to such aggressive questioning, even abuse, more generally, but certainly conditioned by it here on the pitch where frustrations were understandably many.
‘This guy’s a ****ing clown,’ the same player continued his assault, more muted now and at a distance but his words carried on the biting winter breeze.
Gallin’s ears *****ed. His eyes narrowed and his jaw clamped tighter. A line had been crossed. ‘Number Six.’ He beckons the player over while reaching into his pocket. ‘A word, please.’

Let me read your mind: The power of (no) handshakes
Gallin blows the full-time whistle and instantaneously begins to reflect on his performance. ‘I did okay, I think?’ His inner voice quietly ponders. Social interactions, particularly the post-game handshake, will soon provide the answer to his question. Like many football referees, Gallin believes that the number, type, and distribution of handshakes he receives from stakeholders (e.g. players, managers, and spectators) offers a strong indication into whether he was a dutiful referee, or not.

Here is another pre-game scenario that we could not fit onto the previous post. Please note that this will most likely come before the vignettes posted above.

Happy reading.

Porridge, mirrors, and looking-the-part
Gallin glances at the large clock on the kitchen wall, the small hand points towards 12 and the big hand somewhere between 5 and 6.
‘Right, it’s time for me to go, beautiful’, Gallin announces to his wife, who is busy scrubbing porridge off of the saucepan.
‘How many times do I have to tell you, Gallin? After you have made your pre-match porridge put some water and soap in the saucepan. It stops it from sticking’, exclaims Alice, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘Sorry love’, Gallin replies, as he get up from the kitchen table and walks towards the front door.
Gallin stops just shy of the front door and stares at himself in the large hallway mirror for the fourth time today. He is sporting a black Nike polo shirt that has the Nowhere County FA badge stitched onto the left breast. The polo is neatly tucked into matching tracksuit bottoms and purposely contrasted with “out of the box” white Nike trainers, that are only worn on match days.
‘You look fine, Gallin’, Alice shouts from the kitchen.
‘How does she always know when I am panicking about my appearance?’ Gallin thinks to himself, while playing with his short dark hair. ‘Are you sure, Alice? You know it’s imperative that I make a good first impression’.
Alice pops her head around the kitchen doorframe, ‘Yes, darling. You look perfect. You always do. Now get out of here’.
Gallin checks himself in the mirror one last time, takes a deep breath, and mutters ‘You can do this’.
He grabs his kit bag – which was positioned next to the front door and packed with meticulously care three days ago – and leaves the house.

Hi Dr.Ben,

From my (years of) experience, the banter in "Banter, bitching and smelly toilets" is ok, referees that know each other would often have such discussions, but this seems very much at odds with the excruciating quote in "Polite smiles and thank you's.." where the referee sees fit to revert to a 1930s news-reel character and quote the IFAB law on ball pressure verbatim. I've never heard anyone speak like that, let alone a character who minutes earlier was happily swearing at his colleagues.

I think the manager would have told him to f*** off as well.

But, all in this is an interesting snapshot. I like the comment in "Crossing a different line" about the slow erosion of offence that referees feel, and also how we judge the performance on the post-match feedback/handshake in "Let me read your mind". Both of these ring very true to me.

very good read

I would absolutely agree with @Monotone Whistle - I've never heard a referee refer to a law by number outside of theoretical discussions with other referees, and certainly wouldn't try and quote it in the manner described in "Polite smiles and thank yous: Negotiating the early test". Same goes for the moment in "Crossing a different line" where the referee mentally runs through the wording of Law 12 - referee training in the UK just doesn't emphasise rote learning of the laws in the manner your scenarios describe.

The insignificant mistake and Crossing a different line tell a familiar story of how an early mistake can prey on you, but personally, I'm far less sold on Gallin's repeated pre-match worries. While that might be perfectly legitimate if your central character is quite new, I'm only 3 years into my refereeing career and I already feel like I would have quit a long time ago if my pre-match worries were that bad for a "routine" match. In-match decisions where you've had to take an educated guess can always get into your head, but a job where you arrive knowing you'll be the primary decision-maker in a group of 23+ people takes more than just faking outwards confidence.

Hi guys,
Thank you so much for your feedback, it has been thought provoking and helpful, and we have made changes to some of the vignettes based on your responses. Here is the updated versions of the vignettes we have amended. Please have a read and let us know your thoughts, alongside any additional comments you may wish to make in relation to the other scenarios.

Thanks again,
Ben

Doubts, fears, and worries (will potentially be renamed to 'butterflies')
A rectangular, brown road sign for Old Leaf Playing Fields looms large at the roadside. Gallin vigilantly pulls the car to the left, presses softly on the break peddle and indicates to turn into the car park. The butterflies, which have occupied his stomach since the moment he woke, begin to flutter just a little more intensely.
‘How will the teams behave? And the spectators for that matter? Ah, whatever! Just go with it, get that first incident dealt with and for ****’s sake get the big decisions right!’ Gallin muses over the game ahead with an air of futility for no game had ever been predictable. ‘You need to gauge their expectations, book ‘em if you need to, but gauge the game and do what you do.’
Positive self-talk. Gallin knew it was a cliché and sometimes even cringed at his own use of it, but nonetheless indulged himself before every match. He couldn’t help it. He pulls his car into one of many available spaces in the gravel car park, turns off the engine and twists the rear-view mirror so that he can see his deliberate resolute stare.
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about. Think about last week; you bossed the game, you had the respect of the players, they believed in your decision making. You’ve got the club marks and you’ve been getting good feedback from observers. Just do your normal thing.’ Gallin affords himself a slight sneered smile in the mirror. It’s good advice but ultimately pointless. He’d played this game many times before and knew the butterflies would go in time, but not as a result of this talk. Anyway, butterflies are good.

Polite smiles and thank yous: Negotiating the early test (will potentially be renamed to 'the manager's test')
Meeting a team manager for the first time was always... interesting. Gallin, over the years, had created his own loose typology based on his encounters. Managers ranged from Perfect Professionals right through to Obstructive Pigs. Gallin’s most loathed manager, however, just had to be the Machiavellian *****.
The home manager looked Gallin up and down, taking in his brilliantly polished boots and beautifully pressed kit. Gallin did his best to deflect the manager’s premeditated and inflated contemptuous gaze with a positive and self-assured guise of his own. A swan on the water, Gallin once thought, the epitome of sophistication and calm on the surface, but below driven by tumultuous fears and self-doubting. He swallows as inconspicuously as he possibly can.
‘Good afternoon. Team sheet, please.’ Gallin announces more loudly that he had intended, holding out his right hand. The manager pulls out a scrunched-up piece of paper from his tracksuit pocket and hands it to Gallin without a word. ‘Thank you, and the match ball?’
The manager bends down and pulls out an almost fully-inflated football from a scruffy holdall. ‘Here you go, ref.’ The manager says with a wry smile. ‘Anything else for you?’
Gallin takes the ball and squeezes it between the palms of his hands. Some way below pressure and the manager knows it, of course. And Gallin knows that he knows. Unquestionably a Machiavellian *****.
‘Pump it up, please.’ Gallin says bluntly with a forcibly good humoured smile, and gently tosses the ball back into the arms of the manager and walks away. The manager’s head follows Gallin with a roguish grin as he fumbles in the holdall for a hand-pump.

I question if the language and writing style used fits the target group, and whether it aids discussion.
I find this very difficult to read. You are obfuscating key developments behind rich language.
For example, "one slightly more committed observer", could be a player or a fan. It took me three scans to process this. A description, such as "another player", would be better. You say: "committed observer". If you mean the player was using a more aggressive tone, just say so.

In "crossing the line" you cite the law regarding the sending off offence. I don't know what you intention is here. You could also cite the yellow card offence, "dissent by word or action." The sliding scale of offensiveness has been discussed many times here and it is unique to every referee. "That's a ****ing joke, ref" is probably a yellow for me, depending on the attitude, aggressiveness and level of disappointment shown by the player.

Anyway, very interesting project. Great stuff!

the renaming of the titles are a good start