The Ref Stop

Man City v Spurs

Absolutely, you do have to raise the level of expectation, but even so, that's really unlikely to be better than a FK IMO.

As someone else pointed out earlier in the thread - they're good, but they're not perfect. Haaland has already missed an open goal in this game that I wouldn't be shocked to see finished off on my local bobbly park. Expecting every blind pass to be spot-on is overcorrecting for their skill level.
I agree with you to an extent, but I think this is a moot point here because Haaland did play the blind pass and he did find Grealish. All of your points are absolutely valid if he blows at the point of the foul or before Haaland plays the pass, but he blows once (at least in my opinion) any uncertainty has gone and there is a clear advantage.
 
The Ref Stop
I think the player reaction was quite muted in the circumstances. I haven't heard Pep's post match interview, but he didn't go mad on the FOP
Most of us have misconduct in us given enough provocation. Hooper is guilty of a red card offence because he's denied an Obvious Goalscoring Opportunity in injury time against one of the top teams in a high profile top flight game. A howler by a referee will always trigger misconduct. Anyone expecting anything less is in cloud cuckoo land. What we work to minimise on a weekly basis is dissent and abuse that's out of proportion to the subjectivity we apply on a routine basis. Don't get me wrong, abuse should never happen, but I hope to God I never make a mistake of this ilk because I really don't fancy the consequences. In a sense, it's a saving grace that it happened so late in the game because the it amounted to an acutely painful experience as opposed to something Hooper had to recover/suffer from earlier in the game

The intensity of the emotion Hooper must have experienced in the moment would've been off the scale. That's what rendered him unable to penalise the dissent. City may get off unpunished given the circumstances
 
What is the odds on the FA completely ignoring these scenes and justifying it because the referee made a mistake. Ederson ran 40 yards to protest. The message to grassroots, if the referee has made a mistake (or if you think he has) free for all on mobbing the referee. These are the moments the FA can show leadership in quashing dissent rather than putting it back on referees to sin bin when they know it won't happen.

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Haaland aggressively hit the ref too... Which no one seems to be talking about.

Guess he will get away with it and it tells grassroots that it's fine to smack a refs' arm when annoyed.
 
Haaland and Emerson(Spurs) for the initial incident... Nothing for the whole city squad surrounding the referee.

Also, anyone notice that Haaland aggressively hit the ref's hands/arms down with a lot of force? Yet, not a red card. Worse than Mitrovic in my opinion.

That's honestly a worse mistake than the non advantage
I'm not saying that because the referee has made a mistake people should be able to abuse them, but Hooper probably knew in that moment that he had made an absolutely howler and, much like I have previously when it's became immediately apparent I've got something wrong, allowed far more in the way of dissent than normal.

I think if you want people to accept that you're a human that can and will make mistakes, you have to have a bit more understanding at peoples immediate frustration when you do so. If he starts dishing out cards left right and centre he won't only be 'the guy who denied man city a 1 on 1 in the closing moments' he'll also be the man that caused a whole load of cautions and a dismissal.

Does Hooper blow his whistle?

Whistle to mouth with foul signal. Then advantage. Followed almost immediately by stopping play.
That, or he didnt see Grealish and think Haaland is just punting it upfield.

I don't buy the offside version I have heard as that's a clear delay delay delay and everyone would forget about the foul anyway.

I've done it before where I've gone to blow the whistle and then spotted the advantage so I stopped the act of blowing the whistle but it's too late and a small noise comes out. Then you think for a second and realise actually I can't now let play go on because someone may have stopped on that miniature whistle.
Unlikely explanation, but a possibility.
I'd agree that the likely explanation is just that he didn't spot Grealish or expect the ball to get through to him
 
you have to have a bit more understanding at peoples immediate frustration when you do so.
No no no. I'm sorry but no. I have no understanding for this type of behaviour. This is the culture that decades of referee disrespect has built into the the game. Passion for the game is another excuse used by players alongside frustration to excuse referee abuse and disrespect. Empathy for players is another one. There should be absolutely no excuse for referee abuse or disrespect. And if us as referees don't believe in it, we can't expect players, spectators and the like to do so.
 
No no no. I'm sorry but no. I have no understanding for this type of behaviour. This is the culture that decades of referee disrespect has built into the the game. Passion for the game is another excuse used by players alongside frustration to excuse referee abuse and disrespect. Empathy for players is another one. There should be absolutely no excuse for referee abuse or disrespect. And if us as referees don't believe in it, we can't expect players, spectators and the like to do so.

As I said, nobody deserves to be abused, but it's just my personal take on things that if I know I've made an absolute howler, I'll allow abit more in the heat of the moment. I don't personally wish to be blamed for 8 dissent cautions and a dismissal that followed my own error. Obviously there is a line that should be drawn and not crossed still, but if you start reacting to dissent in response to a very poor decision the same way you do dissent in response to a subjective decision, I think you'll make yourself more memorable in a bad way.
 
I think the player reaction was quite muted in the circumstances. I haven't heard Pep's post match interview, but he didn't go mad on the FOP
Most of us have misconduct in us given enough provocation. Hooper is guilty of a red card offence because he's denied an Obvious Goalscoring Opportunity in injury time against one of the top teams in a high profile top flight game. A howler by a referee will always trigger misconduct. Anyone expecting anything less is in cloud cuckoo land. What we work to minimise on a weekly basis is dissent and abuse that's out of proportion to the subjectivity we apply on a routine basis. Don't get me wrong, abuse should never happen, but I hope to God I never make a mistake of this ilk because I really don't fancy the consequences. In a sense, it's a saving grace that it happened so late in the game because the it amounted to an acutely painful experience as opposed to something Hooper had to recover/suffer from earlier in the game

The intensity of the emotion Hooper must have experienced in the moment would've been off the scale. That's what rendered him unable to penalise the dissent. City may get off unpunished given the circumstances
Would this type of reaction happen if a top flight rugby referee drops a howler? or a cricket umpire? I don't thinks so. Not because their players are a different type of human. It's because the culture we have built for our game expects this type of reaction. Even the referees expect it. I can count a few on this forum ☺️
 
Would this type of reaction happen if a top flight rugby referee drops a howler? or a cricket umpire? I don't thinks so. Not because their players are a different type of human. It's because the culture we have built for our game expects this type of reaction. Even the referees expect it. I can count a few on this forum ☺️
But we don't referee rugby or cricket. We referee football. Comparisons to those other sports will never ever be worthwhile.
 
As I said, nobody deserves to be abused, but it's just my personal take on things that if I know I've made an absolute howler, I'll allow abit more in the heat of the moment. I don't personally wish to be blamed for 8 dissent cautions and a dismissal that followed my own error. Obviously there is a line that should be drawn and not crossed still, but if you start reacting to dissent in response to a very poor decision the same way you do dissent in response to a subjective decision, I think you'll make yourself more memorable in a bad way.
And what I am saying/asking is that don't allow any (more) dissent that you normally would regardless of a mistake or not.

If you allow 'more' dissent when you make a mistake, then you are going to get more dissent everytime a player thinks you have made a mistake. You are basically training them for it.

Honestly I know where you are coming from as I had been taught to referee that way for years. Empathy etc.
 
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I think this is where VAR should come into play. There should be retrospective punishments for this type of behaviour if the referee is hounded like this and doesn't get the opportunity to act
 
I think this is where VAR should come into play. There should be retrospective punishments for this type of behaviour if the referee is hounded like this and doesn't get the opportunity to act
the ref had plenty of opportunity and scope to act
 
I'm not saying that anyone is wrong here in saying that players shouldn't be held accountable for it, but I just don't think, especially with the way things were, anyone is going to forget about that mistake for a long time if he started flashing out a ton of cards in the wake of what was clearly a very poor decision.
 
Would this type of reaction happen if a top flight rugby referee drops a howler? or a cricket umpire? I don't thinks so. Not because their players are a different type of human. It's because the culture we have built for our game expects this type of reaction. Even the referees expect it. I can count a few on this forum ☺️
Possibly...
However, football represents a different demographic from some other Sports. The culture and tribal nature will always be unique. Not for a moment would I condone abuse of any Match Official for any reason, but we have to be realistic about expectation in such provocative circumstances. If I was playing, I'd probably be guilty of losing it. At the same time, I wouldn't pose any threat to any Match Official. We can and should expect the Referee to be barked at without being bitten. Otherwise, it wouldn't really be football

In a sense, if we don't enjoy sticking our heads in the lion's mouth on a weekly basis, we're in the wrong game and should do something else. The trick is, having the ability to get every game done relatively unscathed. I sort of enjoy some threat of repercussions. Keeps me on my game!
 
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This wasn't a grass roots game, it was a game between two of the top EPL clubs with millions watching. Very easy to say that Simon Hooper should crack down on dissent, but put yourself in his position. He knows he has just dropped a very, very big clanger, and he also knows what the media and fan reaction would be if he chased that mistake by flashing cards for dissent cautions around. The behaviour of the players isn't right, but very few top flight referees are going to crack down on dissent when they know they have made a very bad mistake.

In my game yesterday I had a coach go absolutely apoplectic at me, he felt I should have stopped the game earlier when a player went down seemingly injured even though his players had carried on attacking and I hadn't seen it just as they hadn't. When I did stop play I had every intention of showing him a red card, but at that point realised that the player, who was immediately in front of the benches, was unconscious and had gone down with no one anywhere near her. Technically speaking I should have still showed him a red card, but how would that make me look when a 17 year old player was down and unconscious? I hadn't done anything wrong but I still felt guilty at not realising what had happened faster and stopping play earlier, and I only had a crowd of around 30 watching the game.
 
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i think you're bangon here RustyRef - any game has context, and we need to manage the game and players, but with respect to the context, especially when we've made an error.
 
i think you're bangon here RustyRef - any game has context, and we need to manage the game and players, but with respect to the context, especially when we've made an error.
No excuses for Haaland to lay hands on the referee though.

Verbals, context some may forgive, but you cannot allow physical contact.
 
If you don’t want a player at that level, in that situation, to react to that shocker of a decision, then we need robots playing the game. You can’t argue that refs are just humans without the counter argument that players are also humans that have emotions. Don’t think anyone but Hooper can explain his decision, we all saw the clear play on after the foul and after Haaland made the pass, he’s then running directly behind Grealish, so has a clear view. He then decides to blow either while ball is in the air or when it gets to Grealish. He’s not let his own advantage play out. Crazy decision.
 
This wasn't a grass roots game, it was a game between two of the top EPL clubs with millions watching. Very easy to say that Simon Hooper should crack down on dissent, but put yourself in his position. He knows he has just dropped a very, very big clanger, and he also knows what the media and fan reaction would be if he chased that mistake by flashing cards for dissent cautions around. The behaviour of the players isn't right, but very few top flight referees are going to crack down on dissent when they know they have made a very bad mistake.

In my game yesterday I had a coach go absolutely apoplectic at me, he felt I should have stopped the game earlier when a player went down seemingly injured even though his players had carried on attacking and I hadn't seen it just as they hadn't. When I did stop play I had every intention of showing him a red card, but at that point realised that the player, who was immediately in front of the benches, was unconscious and had gone down with no one anywhere near her. Technically speaking I should have still showed him a red card, but how would that make me look when a 17 year old player was down and unconscious? I hadn't done anything wrong but I still felt guilty at not realising what had happened faster and stopping play earlier, and I only had a crowd of around 30 watching the game.
I understand your view and the situation you were in in your game. As I said in an earlier post this is not just about football incidents but about respect for authority in general. I'm am sure in England too but in Au there has been a big spike in abuse and assault against first responders (ambulance, fire brigade) by those impacted. But do we say it's understandable and accept it because the abusers have had a tragedy? Accepting the way it is and saying it's the reality of things is not going to eradicate' disease which has crept into our game and getting worse. At the very least we should do our part.

In your game, while issuing a red card may not be the right action at the time and may inflame the situation, it doesn't mean you should accept the type of behaviour.
For me, I would report the incident and explanation the behaviour. It's unlikely the powers that be would take any action, just as unlikely of any action by The FA against city players. But at least I have done my part.
 
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