Happened to me yesterday, am not shy in admitting. 30 secs in, pass back to goalie is short, striker gets there first, goes round keeper, keeper almost comically grabs strikers waist and pulls him down, in almost a playful way. Even before I got whistle to mouth I have both sets of players going "dont ref" and so on.....thing was, I was not going to.
I gave pen, scored, no issues.
Home team 3-0 up at break, everybody is fine. Away team changed the entire team at ht.. And before you know it, its 3-3, 3-4, 3-5, (the away teams 2nd half team was like streets ahead of the first half team). The home team are tired, fustrated, I have already jumped in quick a few times to defuse things, warned a few of the more aggressive players are not taking kindly to the drubbing, and yip, 15 mins to go, one of them has had enough and boots an away team player as he skips past him, not a single person could or would doubt it was a red card. And yip I did it. Red card....
And you can guess what happens next........"what about the goalie in the first minute" and its coming from everybody...
ok so saw out the remaining time, course manager wants a word at the end.....he has no issues with the red shown to his player but is now wondering why I never showed red to the gk...
hindsight is a wonderful thing of course. I had an uncomfortable last 15 because my actions in the first 30 secs came back to haunt me. Its not just simple enough to say you should have sent the gk off and things would have been straighforward because nobody can predict what happens next. You can only manage whats in front of you in the way you best feel is suitable at the time.