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Choose 3 topics that might improve your performance and enjoyment as a referee

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3 Topics to cover 2 subjects - talk about making it easy eh?!?

1) Players / teams should have some way to demonstrate that they know, or at least have an awareness and appreciaiton of LOTG. I think that the hardest this is that we are epected to officiate over a game where by we know the laws, but the players don't. adding these two extremes will always end up in unwanted dissent, abuse, threats, and or voilence. If you have a team that know the laws, generally they are not that surprised when you blow for a foul - they might not agree with the specifics but that is a matter of judgement of the foul. It's those that don't know the basic reason as to why you are blowing that remonstrate and are exessively emotional, leading to the dissent.

Imagine trying to officiate a hockey game if one team (or both) think you can kick that ball?

2) The consistant approach to enforcing LOTG by all officials, Ref or AR, must be encouraged. There are a wie range of standards and attitued applied to games which can have a posative or negaive approach accordingly. Of the circa 1200 officials in London FA, the monthly mastermind group has between 40 and 70 attendees per meeting. Great! There are from L9 to L2a, and retired PL officials. Even better. The topics discussed are varied and applicable to your saturday afternoon parks games. Brilliant! Those that attend these sessions have to follow on from those that have "given up on the system as they just treat you like s&*t" and do their one game a month to escape the Mrs and for a bit extra dosh.

3) More assesments. Some hate assessments as they get their 3 per year for promotion, and thats it. The more you have the more run-of-the-mill it becomes so the less stressful they become, and the better the overall picture of officials in the CFA. Improving the overall base standard of officials across the board.

All of the above will at some point require investment or monetry expenditure, so it would have to come from somewhere, be it money to CFA to spread as they need, to clubs for facilities, players and baseline standards, increase officials match fees etc.

So I suppose I can do it in one then:

1) Invest more, for the now, and the future.
 
Okay, on the grounds that atitudes towards refereeing won't change overnight I'll try and go for some things simple ...

1) Get involved in your local RA. Attending meetings, fitness training and interaction with other referees is great for boosting your confidence.
2) Keep spectators away from the touch lines. I do most of my refereeing in local parks and I'm always happy to go somewhere wth a barrier/fence around the pitch. Even if it's just a couple of yards from the touchline that separation between the field and spectators seems to make for a less aggressive environment in which to play the game. Recently, when there have been no barriers, I've had teams placing a line of cones down 2-3 yards from the touch lines and they stay behind these cones during play - it sounds very simplistic but it has an effect.
3) Facilities. Again, in local parks how often do we have to put up with poor changing facilities. I've seen too many referees rooms which haven't been cleaned for ages and double up as a store for a vast array of kit which hasn't been used for years and never will be again. While football clubs continually complaint about facilities there are many who don't help themselves. - it costs a lot for a new clubhouse but it's free to sweep the floor and empty the bins after each match.

Let's see what others have top say.
 
I think I need to clarify...

Topics that would be delivered as training to you as a referee. Forget the clubs, facilities and all that stuff. What training would you like that would improve your performance and increase your enjoyment as a referee.

Take 2
 
I think you need to go first when you asks something like that.
No I don't. You see each year I arrange a development evening for referees in my County. I find I'm recycling topics so I'm looking for new ones by asking forum users to see what they would like.
 
Ones we're looking at trying to do here this coming off-season are as follows:
* Match management (including dissent and OFFINABUS)
* "Refereeing Essentials" - basic whistle use (ie, when required, varying tones), pre-game preparation, position, signals (official and unofficial)
* Bringing your AR game to the match (how to be an effective AR, positioning, anticipation, signalling, etc)

With those bigger topics, we're also looking at doing "mini-sessions" including:
* Managing the technical areas as AR1 (or 4th Official, we should be so lucky!)
* Communication (both among the referee crew and with players/technical staff -- what's good, what's bad)
* Arriving at the field (what to pack, communicating with your crew pre-match, warming up)
 
* Match management (including dissent and OFFINABUS)
* "Refereeing Essentials" - basic whistle use (ie, when required, varying tones), pre-game preparation, position, signals (official and unofficial)
* Communication (both among the referee crew and with players/technical staff -- what's good, what's bad)

Hint Hint @Brian Hamilton ;):hmmm:
 
Brian, my thoughts (with an assessor insight):

1. Disciplinary action management - location on FOP, body language, players perception. Not just for cautions, but dismissals & b*****kings.

2. Restart positioning.

3. Dealing with benches / TA when on your own. What to do, what not to do, what to say, what is acceptable, how to get rid of them.

A fourth if you will accept it - dealing with after dismissal / after match misconduct. Junior referees seem unsure what they / should do.
 
Thinking skills session for dealing with pressures within the game and managing your own reactions

Fitness, nutrition and injuries awareness (basics)

Managing offside (lone ref vs neutral ARs).
 
Good to recycle Brian, I think you and I can look back enough to see the timings of some topics re-occurring over those years too.

Interestingly for us (Oxon) the results from this kind of session actually offered us a preview of what we'd need to 'cover' on one of our pre-county cup final seminars.
 
1) Fitness, fitness, fitness -- I find that while we do get a reasonable amount of advice given on match situations etc, we are often left to our own devices for training. If you're like me (and I don't think I'm too odd), then you find it hard to train just on your own. I love having a group of people who like to train together and it would be lovely to have a fitness coach for the referees in my area who could run us through some exercises that we could carry on doing together throughout the year.

2) Concentration -- Aside from fitness, its' the most important aspect to refereeing a match and I've found that we get practically no advice on how to (a) improve and (b) focus our concentration before, during, and after the match until the very highest levels of national refereeing. Before the match, referees and assistant referees must take some time to focus on the match ahead and on their individual responsibilities during that match then they must work together to concentrate on their shared duties. During the match, they must concentrate on the match itself and on living up to their individual and team duties. After the match, it is important to concentrate on how the match went so that you can assess yourself and improve your future performance. Having some training on concentration improvement would be very helpful.

3) Techniques -- Combining our newly-found fitness and our excellent concentration with running technique, signalling technique, our technique for dealing with players who need to be given a dressing down/booking, and our team-work techniques on things like goals, free kicks etc would be a nice addition as well.
 
1. Positioning / Movement during fluid play - Getting that angle and not getting too wide so I'm never caught out on that 9/5 and looking at a challenge right from behind it, making sure play develops infront of me all the time rather than being in the middle of play. Working on it at the moment, and it seems to be working.

2. Mental noting Strategy? - Remembering - I've had a quite word with 2, gave the public rebuke to 7, got the captain in on 5.

3. Tempo Management - As it states. Think I'm there with this but see it in games I go and watch not used correctly which leads to game's going out of our control.

(PS my grammar is poor this evening)
 
I have been to quite a few training modules in the last few years covering the most essential laws and changes, and refereeing basics: offside, identifying fouls, match control/personality/player handling, movement/positioning. These were all great. Your question was improvement and enjoyment. I am looking for advanced insight. And I am learning a lot from working as an AR with good middlepeople.*

I would like:
- Diffusing tension, when to step in, how to deal physically separate players, advanced positioning in conflict situations
- Teamwork - how to apply the laws as a unit, support each other, communicate as one, dealing with the unexpected (not undermine or cause doubt, all the team working tricks you pick up slowly game by game)
- Similar to the post above interacting with teams - how to handle contact with teams before and after the game. Sadly, in our leagues, after each match the players politely line up, applaud or similar and then all shake hands without fail. The officials look on, then a handful come and shake hands, often none from the losing team. This is so wrong. All the players should have some courtesy contact with the officials after the game (I am not asking to be clapped).

*I have been AR for a lot of games recently. My best ref probably female under 25. Great match control. Very good communication with me on difficult decisions - easy to tell if we disagreed and move on. Totally called me up after the game on a far side slow positioning error. Respect. And we did not speak the same language.
 
Ones we're looking at trying to do here this coming off-season are as follows:
* Match management (including dissent and OFFINABUS)
* "Refereeing Essentials" - basic whistle use (ie, when required, varying tones), pre-game preparation, position, signals (official and unofficial)
* Bringing your AR game to the match (how to be an effective AR, positioning, anticipation, signalling, etc)

With those bigger topics, we're also looking at doing "mini-sessions" including:
* Managing the technical areas as AR1 (or 4th Official, we should be so lucky!)
* Communication (both among the referee crew and with players/technical staff -- what's good, what's bad)
* Arriving at the field (what to pack, communicating with your crew pre-match, warming up)
very good ideas
 
- When it all goes wrong. Self-help strategies etc, or to paraphrase Kipling - If you can keep your head when all around are losing theirs...
This could be an evening on it's own just considering the cause of it going wrong - Definite mistakes, teams with history/hatred, one of "those" teams.
 
1. Positioning / Movement during fluid play - Getting that angle and not getting too wide so I'm never caught out on that 9/5 and looking at a challenge right from behind it, making sure play develops infront of me all the time rather than being in the middle of play. Working on it at the moment, and it seems to be working.

2. Mental noting Strategy? - Remembering - I've had a quite word with 2, gave the public rebuke to 7, got the captain in on 5.

3. Tempo Management - As it states. Think I'm there with this but see it in games I go and watch not used correctly which leads to game's going out of our control.

(PS my grammar is poor this evening)

I agree here, with all 3.

I think for new referees there should be a good degree of focus on how you have to adapt things when on your own.

1. For example a lot is said about positioning, but only really on set pieces and with NAR's if open play. Tell young referees how to get the best angles and position with no NAR's etc, as if they're just starting it will be a good couple of years at least before they get NAR's and even then very rarely.

2. Completely agree with, and perhaps caution technique for younger ones. Tell then to take their time etc.

3. More experienced referees should give the value of their experience in how to read the temperature of the game, things to look for, and how to react to maintain control.
 
A lot of focus is put on how to do it and not why to do it.

This would encourage people to stay in the game
 
A lot of the ideas being suggested seem to be "how to deal with this situation" or "how to cope when...." etc.
These are character and personality based skills in the main and can't really be taught or trained. They're what separates those who progress quickly (at a young age especially) and those who struggle.

An idea Brian, could be to get trainees/candidates to prior submit in writing (anonymously) a decision or situation which they've felt caused them difficulty or confusion during the past say, two seasons. Pick out any that are similar and/or cherry pick a couple that are relevant or common at the levels you'll have in attendance and structure your training/presentation delivery on that. A bit of role-play etc. ? ? :)
 
Previous thread post, September 2015. Today, it's March 2016. Do not revive threads from the dead. This SHOULD be an automatic warning point...but I'm feeling in a good mood, so I'm saying publicly no more.
This goes to ALL. The past few weeks have seen threads be revived. It stops now! Next one is 'in the book'.
 
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