Open Age Horrendous first match today - need some game management advice

[wenkai31]

Hello!

I've just been back after a 2 year hiatus and my first match back was a complete nightmare. The issues I faced were dealt with by one team - constant insults, vulgarities, getting spitted on, death threats etc.

For reference, the match I'm talking about is a "Sunday League" game filled with players from all walks of life - young, old, different races etc. I have no AR/linesman to aid me.

Strangely enough, I came out of the match feeling I've done the best I could. I booked the more problematic players for dissent after the first warning, and generally followed what my FIFA instructors told me to do when handling disruptive teams - clear warning gestures, private talks, calming the players down etc. But it's amazing how it didn't work out one bit.

My age (I'm 19), I feel didn't help much either. I'm not especially tall, nor big, and while I'm 19 biologically, I can easily pass as a 16/17 year old person. It feels as though the players were just not happy that some young bespectacled kid was overseeing the game and you can just feel in the air that they don't really trust me to govern a match. Warning signs were already flashing during the pre-game chats/handshakes where the players start talking down to me (but I just laughed those off since one advice I got was to have a sense of humor, and I'm generally really hard to offend. Besides, I don't really know how to handle these kinds of situation.) and one even threaten to break my face with his leg and constantly make threats to me throughout the game, in a bid to scare me (He was the one that got red carded in the end for spitting on me).

For this match though, I did make some mistakes (looking back, I could have called a foul for 3 incidents, but ironically, they were fouls committed by the problematic team), but I'm 100% confident about all the other decisions I've made. I mis-shouted a couple of calls like "blue's corner" instead of "red's corner" despite pointing for a "red's corner". Offsides were really hard to spot accurately as well without an AR to help me out.

My question is this. How do I earn respect or stamp my authority on a match despite being smaller than most people on the field and looking terribly young? How can I stop players from intimidating me and threatening to kill me, despite already issuing yellows and reds early in the match? How can I get players to respect my calls and not push me away, saying it's okay, despite also issuing warnings and yellows already? Last but not least, what kind of things do ya'll tell yourself when you feel the pressure to quaver to give in to a decision due to the stuff their team's players told you? I feel my game management is the weakest part of my game and I would love to learn from the more experienced referees.

Thanks for all your help in advance. My next game is tomorrow (yes, no rest days /sigh/) and I can only hope things will get better. It's certainly demoralising to have this sort of experience in your first match back after a long break.

p.s. Ignore the profile picture, I don't exactly look like that anymore. I have chopped off my locks.

 

[JamesL]

In this description above I'm surprised you completed the 90 minutes.- death threats, being spat at, threats of physical violence I think would be grounds for abandonment if you feared for your own personal safety.

Personally, if you're lacking confidence, I'd reccomend getting out as an AR with some more experienced referees. This can be used as a good learning exercise on how to manage players and situations. You'll also learn what not to do as well. It'll help you learn pre match exercises that you can do that shows teams and players you're competent. A good pitch inspection - chat to managers / players if they're receptive. I always like to at least say good morning, afternoon. Comment on the conditions, appear upbeat about the prospect of being the ref. Seems to work for me.at least getting clubs "onside" pre match.

 

[pankaye]

To start with i'd send of the player who threatens to break my face.

 

[wenkai31]

In this description above I'm surprised you completed the 90 minutes.- death threats, being spat at, threats of physical violence I think would be grounds for abandonment if you feared for your own personal safety.

Personally, if you're lacking confidence, I'd reccomend getting out as an AR with some more experienced referees. This can be used as a good learning exercise on how to manage players and situations. You'll also learn what not to do as well. It'll help you learn pre match exercises that you can do that shows teams and players you're competent. A good pitch inspection - chat to managers / players if they're receptive. I always like to at least say good morning, afternoon. Comment on the conditions, appear upbeat about the prospect of being the ref. Seems to work for me.at least getting clubs "onside" pre match.

Thanks for your feedback James. To be honest, it completely escaped my mind that I could abandon the game. To be fair though, the spitting, death threats, and threats of physical violence all came from the same player and he was duly sent off during the game. The ironic thing was that he just won his team a penalty but he was frustrated that I waited to see if there was an advantage, since he managed to nick the ball to two open players before he got hacked down (the person who eventually scored the goal was in an offside position, so I pulled it back for the penalty), and proceeded to spit on me. Truth is really stranger than fiction. In retrospect, I should have dealt with him earlier, and perhaps more harshly. Maybe even more firmly. Part of the learning experience I guess.

I see you're a Level 5 referee, which signifies decent experience. Based on your career, do you have any tips to offer to make yourself more imposing in a match, especially when the heat starts rising and the novelty of the feel-good pre-match vibes start wearing off? Or personally, how would you react to teams who aren't necessarily the most "receptive" during these pre-game chats?

Thank you in advance.

 

[wenkai31]

To start with i'd send of the player who threatens to break my face.

That was pre-game though (I know I have the rights to do so, but a lot of stuff didn't come naturally to me after my hiatus, so I'll definitely be way harsher in dealing with this kind of incidents in the future). Nerves got the better of me, unfortunately.

 

[JamesL]

Thanks for your feedback James. To be honest, it completely escaped my mind that I could abandon the game. To be fair though, the spitting, death threats, and threats of physical violence all came from the same player and he was duly sent off during the game. The ironic thing was that he just won his team a penalty but he was frustrated that I waited to see if there was an advantage, since he managed to nick the ball to two open players before he got hacked down (the person who eventually scored the goal was in an offside position, so I pulled it back for the penalty), and proceeded to spit on me. Truth is really stranger than fiction. In retrospect, I should have dealt with him earlier, and perhaps more harshly. Maybe even more firmly. Part of the learning experience I guess.

I see you're a Level 5 referee, which signifies decent experience. Based on your career, do you have any tips to offer to make yourself more imposing in a match, especially when the heat starts rising and the novelty of the feel-good pre-match vibes start wearing off? Or personally, how would you react to teams who aren't necessarily the most "receptive" during these pre-game chats?

Thank you in advance.

If the temperature of the game rises I use my whistle a lot more. I decrease my likelihood of playing advantage and I slow things down. There are subtle ways to do it - as in" wait for my whistle " and just take a second or two extra to get in position. Take an extra second or two to marking the ten yards. Those extra seconds might just help take the bite out of the game if you need it to.

Im also very vocal so even if there arent any fouls going on players are aware of my presence. Even as far as calling out "goal kick gents". Corner ball. Players no I am around.

In short as the temperature rises you increase your profile in the game.

It seems there would have been nothing you coud have done about this one idiot but sent him off before you started/earlier in the game. That would at the very least have shown the other players you weren't going to be a push over.(edit: Im not saying you were btw) .

Sounds to me like you need to get some experience from other referees and I think you would also benefit from being watched too - particularly with being out for a couple of years... a lot has changed with the laws etc. Which I am sure you know about but I would never have got to be the referee or the level I am without the help of our more seasoned colleagues. Both in forms of assessment and being an assistant.

 

[CO. DOWN REF]

Death threat, everyone's going home - but maybe that's more to do with where I live.

Great advice just above. When I hit a bad patch I spent a few hours trawling the Incidents part of the forum and the General forum in particular. You might also have an effective referee association that you can go to as well / mentor etc. Best tip I ever had from here was just to kill games by blowing for everything - find it often changes the focus of the players.

 

[mikedn]

Hello!

I've just been back after a 2 year hiatus and my first match back was a complete nightmare. The issues I faced were dealt with by one team - constant insults, vulgarities, getting spitted on, death threats etc.

For reference, the match I'm talking about is a "Sunday League" game filled with players from all walks of life - young, old, different races etc. I have no AR/linesman to aid me.

Strangely enough, I came out of the match feeling I've done the best I could. I booked the more problematic players for dissent after the first warning, and generally followed what my FIFA instructors told me to do when handling disruptive teams - clear warning gestures, private talks, calming the players down etc. But it's amazing how it didn't work out one bit.

My age (I'm 19), I feel didn't help much either. I'm not especially tall, nor big, and while I'm 19 biologically, I can easily pass as a 16/17 year old person. It feels as though the players were just not happy that some young bespectacled kid was overseeing the game and you can just feel in the air that they don't really trust me to govern a match. Warning signs were already flashing during the pre-game chats/handshakes where the players start talking down to me (but I just laughed those off since one advice I got was to have a sense of humor, and I'm generally really hard to offend. Besides, I don't really know how to handle these kinds of situation.) and one even threaten to break my face with his leg and constantly make threats to me throughout the game, in a bid to scare me (He was the one that got red carded in the end for spitting on me).

For this match though, I did make some mistakes (looking back, I could have called a foul for 3 incidents, but ironically, they were fouls committed by the problematic team), but I'm 100% confident about all the other decisions I've made. I mis-shouted a couple of calls like "blue's corner" instead of "red's corner" despite pointing for a "red's corner". Offsides were really hard to spot accurately as well without an AR to help me out.

My question is this. How do I earn respect or stamp my authority on a match despite being smaller than most people on the field and looking terribly young? How can I stop players from intimidating me and threatening to kill me, despite already issuing yellows and reds early in the match? How can I get players to respect my calls and not push me away, saying it's okay, despite also issuing warnings and yellows already? Last but not least, what kind of things do ya'll tell yourself when you feel the pressure to quaver to give in to a decision due to the stuff their team's players told you? I feel my game management is the weakest part of my game and I would love to learn from the more experienced referees.

Thanks for all your help in advance. My next game is tomorrow (yes, no rest days /sigh/) and I can only hope things will get better. It's certainly demoralising to have this sort of experience in your first match back after a long break.

p.s. Ignore the profile picture, I don't exactly look like that anymore. I have chopped off my locks.

Death threat ? i would have abandoned the game.............. i cautioned 3 players today for dissent..... i do not put up with any abuse , told all three of them any more directed at me and they will be sent off done the job nothing from them the rest of the game and the rest of the players know you mean business...... how long have you been refereeing ?

 

[jofusref]

it will get better with experience you were too lenient you have cards for a reason, keep at it and there are plenty of good people on here on ly too happy to help with advice

 

[Paul March]

Keep at it, get yourself onto lines at the step or two above where you ref(your RDO can put you in touch with league ref secs) and relax. It is normal to have these self doubts.

Size will only ever be an issue if you let it be. Walk tall, talk big and act incisively- you won't go far wrong.

 

[Cam]

Hey. I am 18 and do high level men's matches . U need 2 be confident ( ironically I'm not terribly confident ). At the very least portray confidences. Have a strong but not over theating tone. U will need to find ways on imposing ur self in the match(things like strong signals). Some people especially in Sunday league matches don't care about the rules and then go out with a mindset to be awful. A lot of older people don't like being told what to do by us younger people(no offence of course).And always remember not everyone is going to be happy with what you have done.
Good luck

 

[GraemeS]

To echo what others have said above, it sounds like you missed a few opportunities to use cards, which may have stopped some of the later incidents from occurring. There's a perfect example in the incidents you describe - A death threat should have been red at minimum, with abandonment an option if you felt a risk he was actually going to carry out the threat. And had you sent him off for that, there would have been no opportunity for him to spit at you.

Similarly, I'd argue you were a touch too lenient on dissent (and I say this having been far too lenient in a match yesterday after a much shorter break over Christmas!). Warn a player he's close to crossing the line the first time it happens, but I don't get in the habit of going round the entire team issuing formal warnings. If the team as a whole is dissenting, I'll call the captain over after the second incident and tell him his players need to calm down. Next one goes in the book, even if it's the first thing he's said. Remember that the dissent section of the LOTG says nothing about "persistent" or "repeated" - you can book someone for the first word they say if the match demands it.

Every referee makes the odd honest mistake - the best thing you can do there is just mentally move on. Otherwise you're risking making "balancing" calls (even subconsciously) and that never ends well.

A referees authority doesn't come through age, it comes through knowledge of the LOTG, a whistle and some cards. You don't have many tools, so use the one you have. Project confidence to imply that you have the knowledge/experience and if that doesn't work, use the other two tools.

How did the match on the following day go?

 

[wenkai31]

Thanks for all your help. To give ya'll an update, the game I did today was the complete opposite of the game in question. Game flowed well, no cards needed and players were generally receptive to warnings I gave fairly early on. However, I think a lot of it has to do with the quality of the players, since you could tell they weren't out looking for trouble and behaving like thugs. I think in this game, I got a better idea on how to profile players by their personalities and apply different methods to keep them in control.

There was this guy that was rather rowdy and appeared rather egoistical, since he plays "professionally" outside the Sunday league, but after praising him for keeping his cool when he was on the receiving end of a late tackle, he kept his temper in check for the remaining duration of the game, and even pushed his teammates away when they were arguing with me.

On the flipside, there was another player who was angry after I didn't award him a free kick for a shoulder charge by the opponent, and went barging into him off the ball. I waited for the ball to go out, calm him down, told him that he was the player most likely to score (he had about 2-3 shots prior to the incident) and to not be stupid and get a yellow card. He didn't cause any problems for the remaining game as well.

There was also this guy on the sidelines shouting insults out of the blue. Stopped the game, stared him down as I walked towards him and told him firmly to let me do my job. He came on in the second half, joked around with me and wasn't a worrisome presence.

And after a few compliments to 'massage' the egoes of the more prominent players, boost the morale of the more frustrated players, and encourage the more shy/timid ones, the game flowed well, despite the horrendous Singapore heat blasting down on us mid-afternoon. Certainly a great fixture for me to officiate.

However, it remains to be seen if this is an isolated incident, since well, I only had two games so far to contrast. I'll need to increase my "sample size" of matches and better judge if something I'm doing is affecting my game management positively. This is where experience comes in, and hopefully over the long term I'll get better at managing the game.

If the temperature of the game rises I use my whistle a lot more. I decrease my likelihood of playing advantage and I slow things down. There are subtle ways to do it - as in" wait for my whistle " and just take a second or two extra to get in position. Take an extra second or two to marking the ten yards. Those extra seconds might just help take the bite out of the game if you need it to.

Im also very vocal so even if there arent any fouls going on players are aware of my presence. Even as far as calling out "goal kick gents". Corner ball. Players no I am around.

In short as the temperature rises you increase your profile in the game.

It seems there would have been nothing you coud have done about this one idiot but sent him off before you started/earlier in the game. That would at the very least have shown the other players you weren't going to be a push over.(edit: Im not saying you were btw) .

Sounds to me like you need to get some experience from other referees and I think you would also benefit from being watched too - particularly with being out for a couple of years... a lot has changed with the laws etc. Which I am sure you know about but I would never have got to be the referee or the level I am without the help of our more seasoned colleagues. Both in forms of assessment and being an assistant.

Thanks for your help James. No worries with mincing your words - I am a very hard person to offend. I will definitely keep your advice in mind, especially the methods to slow the game down.

Death threat, everyone's going home - but maybe that's more to do with where I live.

Great advice just above. When I hit a bad patch I spent a few hours trawling the Incidents part of the forum and the General forum in particular. You might also have an effective referee association that you can go to as well / mentor etc. Best tip I ever had from here was just to kill games by blowing for everything - find it often changes the focus of the players.

Hmm, so if games start to go awry, I should start blowing for everything?

Death threat ? i would have abandoned the game.............. i cautioned 3 players today for dissent..... i do not put up with any abuse , told all three of them any more directed at me and they will be sent off done the job nothing from them the rest of the game and the rest of the players know you mean business...... how long have you been refereeing ?

Duly noted. I did book four players for dissent during that match but it didn't seem to work, although I admit, at times I kinda blanked out due to the pressure and wasn't feeling very sharp in general. After doing a post-mortem, I identified which areas I wasn't good enough in and hopefully when similar situations arises, I will perform better.

it will get better with experience you were too lenient you have cards for a reason, keep at it and there are plenty of good people on here on ly too happy to help with advice

Thanks for your input!

Keep at it, get yourself onto lines at the step or two above where you ref(your RDO can put you in touch with league ref secs) and relax. It is normal to have these self doubts.

Size will only ever be an issue if you let it be. Walk tall, talk big and act incisively- you won't go far wrong.

I kept your last sentence in mind while patrolling the pitch during inspection, meeting with the team captains, talking to players, during the game itself, and I must say, it worked very well. Thanks for this!

Hey. I am 18 and do high level men's matches . U need 2 be confident ( ironically I'm not terribly confident ). At the very least portray confidences. Have a strong but not over theating tone. U will need to find ways on imposing ur self in the match(things like strong signals). Some people especially in Sunday league matches don't care about the rules and then go out with a mindset to be awful. A lot of older people don't like being told what to do by us younger people(no offence of course).And always remember not everyone is going to be happy with what you have done.
Good luck

Thanks Cam!

To echo what others have said above, it sounds like you missed a few opportunities to use cards, which may have stopped some of the later incidents from occurring. There's a perfect example in the incidents you describe - A death threat should have been red at minimum, with abandonment an option if you felt a risk he was actually going to carry out the threat. And had you sent him off for that, there would have been no opportunity for him to spit at you.

Similarly, I'd argue you were a touch too lenient on dissent (and I say this having been far too lenient in a match yesterday after a much shorter break over Christmas!). Warn a player he's close to crossing the line the first time it happens, but I don't get in the habit of going round the entire team issuing formal warnings. If the team as a whole is dissenting, I'll call the captain over after the second incident and tell him his players need to calm down. Next one goes in the book, even if it's the first thing he's said. Remember that the dissent section of the LOTG says nothing about "persistent" or "repeated" - you can book someone for the first word they say if the match demands it.

Every referee makes the odd honest mistake - the best thing you can do there is just mentally move on. Otherwise you're risking making "balancing" calls (even subconsciously) and that never ends well.

A referees authority doesn't come through age, it comes through knowledge of the LOTG, a whistle and some cards. You don't have many tools, so use the one you have. Project confidence to imply that you have the knowledge/experience and if that doesn't work, use the other two tools.

How did the match on the following day go?

Fully agreed. As I've mentioned in an earlier reply, nerves got the better of me and at times, I felt I wasn't in control of my own actions (blanking out). I should have taken note of the early signs and stood my ground more firmly. I will keep your advice on dissent in mind. As for the match today, do see the paragraphs before the replies to other forum-goers

 

[Paul March]

Good to hear it went well, this game becomes your reference point of what worked. Persevere and there will be new reference points as your confidence, match control and skill at spotting 'the moments' develop.

The day we think we have mastered it is the day it goes horribly wrong, all refs are always learning!

 

[2nd String Ref]

Wow, what an experience to have first game back! And TBH, it was totally not what I'd expect from a Singaporean league. I guess there are idiots everywhere.
Well done for getting out again and using the advice. All the advice here is very useful and it sounds like you've taken it and used it well.
Also, thanks for posting. It must have been a terrible experience, but by posting here we all learn something from it.
Good luck

 

[davels]

I enjoyed reading this thread through - a well detailed request for support followed by a lot of people very generous with their time & support in response. Really great to see - we all know the job we choose to do can be brilliant one week and the polar opposite the week after.. and it can be very lonely when things go badly. Anyway, just wanted to say

 

[jofusref]

thats what this forum is all about a lot of experienced, and not so experienced referees happy to help anyone who asks for help