The Ref Stop

Advice regarding verbal abuse/confidence

H

Hazzy

New Member
Level 7 Referee
Hello

I am a trainee ref and did my first open men’s fixture yesterday on short notice due to their ref being unwell and my original fixtures being cancelled due to water logging.

During the the game, one or two players from the losing team were hurling a lot of verbal abuse and showing some poor behaviour, like one saying “you’ve been f****ing sh*t all game” and proceeding to boot the ball out of frustration. At the end of the game I overheard one of them saying “surely he’s not a ref”.

This dented my confidence. But by pure fortune, a referee tutor/assessor happened to be observing and approached be at the end of the game to offer some great feedback.

My question to you fellow referees: how do you mentally deal with these comments? I guess it kind of knocked my confidence but I’m never going to give up.

Note: I cautioned with a yellow. Assessor advised in future that I must sinbin but also, he said he wouldn’t have had an issue if I awarded a red either. V helpful advice in what is a lonely and isolating role. My RDO rarely respond to my messages/emails.
 
The Ref Stop
Hazzy said:
My question to you fellow referees: how do you mentally deal with these comments? I guess it kind of knocked my confidence but I’m never going to give up.
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Comments like this are unfortunately common as a referee and can be very challenging to deal with sometimes. It may knock your confidence, but you are still learning so don't beat yourself up over it. Sounds like you dealt with it well with recognising it was a caution (at least), just make sure you sinbin next time also as it will manage the situation a lot better as they will likely not do it again (same for their team mates).
 
Hazzy said:
how do you mentally deal with these comments?
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Time to be honest. They used to bother me as recently as the start of this season, now they're boring or annoying, like a fly buzzing around your head.

I have a good example, refereed a team (start of the season) that did that kind of low level "watch the game ref, speed it up ref" just endless dissent basically. At the time I lacked the confidence to give warnings for it, let alone sin bins. They ended the game with no sin bins and I gave one warning near the end. Did them again at the weekend, 12 yellows in the game and 3 were sin bins for the team that gives that back chat. I gave them plenty of warning that I wasn't going to tolerate being talked at endlessly and questioned on every decision. The confidence comes in time.
 
It comes with time served. Once you get more and more comments in your ear, you realise they’re not actually reflective of your performance 99% of the time, they’re just players being morons, and trying to gain any advantage they can over you.

Just remind yourself you know what you’re doing, you’re qualified. They do not.
 
Thank you all so much for your replies. I am so grateful for this forum. Where do you all get your refereeing feedback from when - by and large - there is often nobody qualified to give you feedback?
 
Hazzy said:
Thank you all so much for your replies. I am so grateful for this forum. Where do you all get your refereeing feedback from when - by and large - there is often nobody qualified to give you feedback?
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Ask to work as an AR so you get to work on better matches with better refs, watch what they do and quiz them.

Ask your local RDO, office or equivalent about mentors, assessors, training opportunities.
 
Hazzy said:
Thank you all so much for your replies. I am so grateful for this forum. Where do you all get your refereeing feedback from when - by and large - there is often nobody qualified to give you feedback?
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Echo the AR thing, I didn’t get any feedback until my first 4w-3w observation at the start of the season. That’s in three years of refereeing.
 
I hope others agree, but when you have a game and you nail it (i.e. you know you handled the game well, handshakes all round at the final whistle etc), you won't remember the matches like you had yesterday.

Of course, you'll learn from those bad days and you won't forget them, but once you get more games under your belt, you'll remember the good stuff much more than the bad.

Keep at it!
 
Have a quiet word in passing, telling them to stop it now before any further action is required. If it happens again blow your whistle when the ball is out of play and call the player over (make him walk to you). Explain clearly that the next time there's dissent you will sin bin them (everyone can see and hear you doing this so they all know). Then make sure you sin bin at the next sign of dissent. Once you've used it a few times you'll see how effective it is.

You could also involve the captain if its multiple people giving you dissent and tell him the next person who does it is going to spend the next 10 minutes in the bin. By doing either of these processes, when the inevitable whinging happens you can confidently explain that you gave the player fair warning but they decides not to listen. It's their fault, not yours.

But I can't stress enough the need to blow your whistle quite clearly and make any player who you want to warn walk to you. I've started playing vets football and I've seen a few younger refs deal with dissent by walking to the offender to warn him. Most players & coaches don't know what they're talking about and it looks really weak.
 
Hazzy said:
Hello

I am a trainee ref and did my first open men’s fixture yesterday on short notice due to their ref being unwell and my original fixtures being cancelled due to water logging.

During the the game, one or two players from the losing team were hurling a lot of verbal abuse and showing some poor behaviour, like one saying “you’ve been f****ing sh*t all game” and proceeding to boot the ball out of frustration. At the end of the game I overheard one of them saying “surely he’s not a ref”.

This dented my confidence. But by pure fortune, a referee tutor/assessor happened to be observing and approached be at the end of the game to offer some great feedback.

My question to you fellow referees: how do you mentally deal with these comments? I guess it kind of knocked my confidence but I’m never going to give up.

Note: I cautioned with a yellow. Assessor advised in future that I must sinbin but also, he said he wouldn’t have had an issue if I awarded a red either. V helpful advice in what is a lonely and isolating role. My RDO rarely respond to my messages/emails.
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Firstly you have my respect for jumping straight in with Men's football.

As people have said above these comments do harm your confidence, at least to start with.

Make sure you focus on the positive aspects of the game, both in game decisions and procedurally, for example introducing yourself to managers, pre game chat with captains etc. Stick with it, next game I'm sure you'll have a blinder your confidence will come right back.
 
Don't beat yourself up, there are many experienced referees that will not tackle open age football so give yourself some credit for trying it. Personally, I now refer open age football to junior football. different challenges but I think more rewarding when you get it right. I've had games as I'm sure many others have where the players will not shake hand after the game or one team won't and the other does. I've also had games when I think I've had a nightmare based on the reaction from the players but then at the final whistle, the players say well done ref, you've had a great game. Other advice above will help you, I'd just add, approach the game knowing that you are in charge of managing the game, not the other way round. I've had games where I've had a zero tolerance to dissent and verbal abuse and others where I've ignored it or attempted to manage it by working with the players with mixed results from the approaches. You'll find an approach that suits your style. The very best compliment that I've had is not thanks during the game or after it and not getting good marks after the game, it's when I've turned up pre-match and have heard the coaches tell the players, you know this ref, he takes no messing about and no dissent so keep your mouths shut. Once that is there, it's easy as sometimes just a stern look at someone stops the verbals. Best wishes, keep using the forum and keep searching out good advice and best practice.
 
Thanks all again. One other question which I’d be interested to see your responses: during the game, a DFK around 15 yards outside the penalty area was awarded to the attacking team. The free kick taker asked me “can I take it early” to which I said “yes” and he shot quickly and scored.

This caused the defending team to erupt, with one of their players approaching me to ask shouldn’t it have been on the whistle, and I replied saying that I permitted it to be taken fast, to which he goes “oh so you’re giving them tips are you?”.

I said “what are you implying by that?” and he said “nothing” and ran off, then repeated “giving them tips”.

Guys I am new to refereeing… is this acceptable? Is this dissent? Is this offinabus? I gave extreme benefit of doubt and moved on, but didn’t like it at all.
 
Hazzy said:
Thanks all again. One other question which I’d be interested to see your responses: during the game, a DFK around 15 yards outside the penalty area was awarded to the attacking team. The free kick taker asked me “can I take it early” to which I said “yes” and he shot quickly and scored.

This caused the defending team to erupt, with one of their players approaching me to ask shouldn’t it have been on the whistle, and I replied saying that I permitted it to be taken fast, to which he goes “oh so you’re giving them tips are you?”.

I said “what are you implying by that?” and he said “nothing” and ran off, then repeated “giving them tips”.

Guys I am new to refereeing… is this acceptable? Is this dissent? Is this offinabus? I gave extreme benefit of doubt and moved on, but didn’t like it at all.
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1) it's just on the side it dissent for me
2) you'll find lots of threads here about quick free kicks. My general take is it a team have time to ask they have not taken it quickly and my answer is always no if I am asked with an if you want it quick just take it.
 
JamesL said:
1) it's just on the side it dissent for me
2) you'll find lots of threads here about quick free kicks. My general take is it a team have time to ask they have not taken it quickly and my answer is always no if I am asked with an if you want it quick just take it.
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Noted. Thanks - I’ll follow that principle. If they have time time to ask, they have not taken it quickly. So many learning points today - so grateful.
 
You'll notice as you get more experience. You get more confidence and you will deal with things differently. So this being your first game, in open age, you probably were doing so much outside of what they typically expect. They will pick up on this and try to exploit it.

The freekick that they scored from, is one of those things, that once you get more experience, you will realise is a flash point. The attacker probably sensed you were inexperienced and chanced his arm by asking you for a quick restart. Had you just said no and made it a ceremonial start, (got the wall in place and had the keeper give a quick signal he was ready then blew the whistle) you would have removed that specific dissent opportunity from your game. You probably caught the defending team off guard, and acting outside of what they typically expect.

You have just done your most inexperienced game so far, congratulations, we have had 3 new referees post recently and it was a mixed bag of experiences and all games going forward will be like this.

My experienced one I did this weekend, the fullback got subbed off and became the club lino. He immediately was having a full blown shouting match with the winger who he had been battling whilst on the pitch and he called me over so I could offer him some protection from the bad names the winger was calling him (I hadn't heard them).

I replaced the CAR immediately. Not because I doubted the winger had called him a c*** but because I knew he wasn't there to work with me. Next time the ball went out near him and that winger went for it, I can guarantee they would have had a physical altercation deliberately caused by the CAR who was there to gain an advantage.
 
With quick free kicks be careful about whether you are interfering or not. It’s not in the laws - but - if you are standing over the ball, pushing/moving players, or are involved closely in positioning the ball - and it’s in an attacking area - then you can get in trouble with a quick free kick.

You want no surprises. So either stay away from the ball and they can take it. (But do not allow a moving ball or from the wrong place. I’ve made this mistake on video review so you don’t have to!)

Or then, if you go to the ball, make it ceremonial. Communicate with the kicker, hold up the whistle, walk the wall (outside to keep players in view), position the wall clearly on or out not on the 18 yard line (avoid handball problems), instruct about hand/arm position, warn nearby attackets to stay 1m away, get in position, blow.

Sounds like a lot to do but it soon becomes second nature. It’s what football expects, and all the little things help you manage the game;)
 
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