The Ref Stop

Assistant Referees

The Ref Stop
It’s these bloody suvveners that dunt talk proppa!

They had some fun with an Essex Ref a few years ago...... :(
 
In Essex you are pretty close to perfect....Just get on a train or a bus and 3 hours later you too could share perfection in God’s County..... Yurkshire :cool:
 
In Essex you are pretty close to perfect....Just get on a train or a bus and 3 hours later you too could share perfection in God’s County..... Yurkshire :cool:

And then when you get to Yorkshire you can hop on a train across the Pennines to Cheshire/Greater Manchester to see how winners live.

I've spent years as a northerner living in the South. One of the worst things is that you can't seem to buy a decent steak and kidney pudding down here, and their mushy peas are lacking somewhat.

My Mrs is a "maid of Kent", and apparently if we have kids I can't teach them to speak northern, i.e. calling hr "mam" and asking if people want 'owt from shop' etc
 
Remembered another one, second hand, repeated to me more as a joke...

During the warm up final sprints ref says to AR:
- Don't run faster than me!
 
Ah Bless, Lancashire...Bloke from Oldham with a sore backside went to the Chemist "Nah then lad, does tha sell arse cream?"
Chemist replies "Aye, Magnum or Cornetto?"

If its cold put long sleeve shirt on, if its really cold you are now allowed to roll the sleeves down!!
 
Interesting AF. From my experience most referees now do NOT give precise areas of the fop where they do/ do not want help. Just that they want it to be 'credible' and/or if you are in a better position than them.

For example a quick hoof up field could mean that although 40/50 yards from the incident, you as AR are the closest official to the incident so would be expected to help the referee. I do think being too precise in the fop about where the AR should/should not get involved can cause problems?

Given I have basically cut the field of play into 3 areas and am only covering half of them, I would hope to be in a position to make the calls in my areas of the pitch, take it from edge of 18 to edge of 18 it's only 60/70 yards so approximately 6-7 secs sprint with ball in air etc I usually make it in time! Also, didn't say I wouldn't expect help in the scenario posted, I just outline the areas I fully expect them to assist me with, what's the point in having a qualified professional on the sideline and telling them ball in/out and flag for offsides?
 
I don't use areas of the field for credibility, except the very corner closest to the assistant. I tell my assistants to judge their involvement based on my position, so if I am 10-15 yards from the play and with an unobstructed view, then they can just focus on their main duties. I have come across too many assistants who seem desperate to get themselves involved in the game and flag for everything that's within the same postcode as them.

I want them to assist, not insist.
 
Given I have basically cut the field of play into 3 areas and am only covering half of them, I would hope to be in a position to make the calls in my areas of the pitch, take it from edge of 18 to edge of 18 it's only 60/70 yards so approximately 6-7 secs sprint with ball in air etc I usually make it in time! Also, didn't say I wouldn't expect help in the scenario posted, I just outline the areas I fully expect them to assist me with, what's the point in having a qualified professional on the sideline and telling them ball in/out and flag for offsides?

Agree with that last part 100%, but think you get best out of fellow professionals if you don't restrict them to strict areas of the pitch.

As long as the team get to the right decisions most of the time - that's what counts I'm sure we all agree!
 
Restricting assistants to giving fouls in specific areas is dangerous. I observed a candidate at the weekend who left himself in a really dodgy position on a fast break, and luckily for him his assistant rescued him by flagging for a foul way outside what would be considered his normal credibility area. It was an obvious defensive foul, and had the assistant not acted there would have been a clear goal scoring opportunity and hell to pay had a goal been scored. Who knows whether he would have taken the same action had he been given a pre-defined area in the pre-match instructions
 
At the start of this season we had a great AR training session where we just looked at lots of clips of AR flags and non-flags for fouls and discussed them. What we learnt is that as an AR you only need to flag if you see something that the referee cannot. Make eye contact first if you can, at least look for your ref's reaction. The best refs are already talking to the players if there is minor contact they are happy with, or motioning that they are considering advantage, or putting the whistle to their lips... if your ref is active then you rarely have to flag for fouls, very rarely.

There are exceptions - if the foul is right in front of you then it helps credibility and match control if you flag.

The best instructions I get go something like: "only immediately flag fouls right in front of you, everything elsewhere and between us, look for my reaction. If I haven't seen and you are sure, flag. Pay particular attention to my foul line and game context. Use your body to show me if a foul was in/out if the box. Always try to identify the offender in case I cannot. Help me monitor the near post area when there are bodies in the box. Only call a penalty if you are 100% sure. Depending on the game (e.g. long ball) and my diagonal, you can also help me look for late challenges and foul throws, depending on my positioning. I am happy for you to talk to the players with minor warnings and reminders."

Had one (good) ref last week who was a little different. If he doesn't react to something small between us then you can still take the initiative and call it - even if he's obviously seen it. Shame he waited until half time to tell me that's how he wanted it and we had one cross signal;) To be honest this isn't my preferred. I like active refs who react to every situation. The players like it and it makes it easy as an AR.
 
Folks, don't get me wrong I don't tell them only in those areas I say that is theirs and I expect them to be making a call in them, of course they can flag for something they see that I don't and would expect them to, but hat I mean is that in their 1/4 of the pitch my expectation is that they are flagging and not waiting on or leaving it to me to make the decision.
 
I've only just started doing matches with NAR's, but I've already had good success with telling them to lead me in a 10 yard semi-circle around their current location and work with me to give the most credible decision outside of that. If that means I lead a decision 12 yards away from them because I'm in the better position, that's fine. And if that means they lead a decision over the far side of the pitch because I've been caught out by a fast break, that's OK too.
 
Never run the line as an NAR, but go "under cover" occasionally as a CAR for my son's team.

Not had any particularly weird instructions from referees, but one referee last season made it clear before KO that he didn't want me to get involved in foul throws. Fair enough, no problems with that. His chat with the home team CAR he did separately, don't know what his instruction were, but 3 times during the game he flagged for foul throws and the ref went along with it.
 
Never run the line as an NAR, but go "under cover" occasionally as a CAR for my son's team.

Not had any particularly weird instructions from referees, but one referee last season made it clear before KO that he didn't want me to get involved in foul throws. Fair enough, no problems with that. His chat with the home team CAR he did separately, don't know what his instruction were, but 3 times during the game he flagged for foul throws and the ref went along with it.

I always brief CARs at the coin toss with the captains, and I never ask for fouls or foul throws.

And if a CAR gave one I wouldn’t go with it, unless I had already identified an offence.
 
I've only just started doing matches with NAR's, but I've already had good success with telling them to lead me in a 10 yard semi-circle around their current location and work with me to give the most credible decision outside of that. If that means I lead a decision 12 yards away from them because I'm in the better position, that's fine. And if that means they lead a decision over the far side of the pitch because I've been caught out by a fast break, that's OK too.

This is similar to my approach with NARs, though I stray away from suggesting a particular yardage. I was an AR to a ref a few weeks ago who said he was 'happy for us to lead if the players were close enough for us to spit on' which was a simple way of representing the distance he was happy with.
 
This is similar to my approach with NARs, though I stray away from suggesting a particular yardage. I was an AR to a ref a few weeks ago who said he was 'happy for us to lead if the players were close enough for us to spit on' which was a simple way of representing the distance he was happy with.
Yeah, I say "about 10 yards" because I assume most referees have paced that distance out enough times to have a fairly good idea of what it looks like, but it's still only a rough guide.
 
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