Teamsheets and what age to give cards and sinbins

[MarcusLoveRef]

Hi everyone,

I’m Marcus and am a teenage referee. I am really enthusiastic about refereeing and just want to ref as many games as I can.
I completed my referee course a couple of months ago and have thus far refereed 4 youth fixtures: boys U11 and U12 and girls U12 and U13.
Those matches went really well, which I’m so happy about.
Recently I’ve been reading lots of the threads on here to better prepare myself, as I felt I was not taught enough in the course.

A couple questions.

For now, I’m looking to referee max U14, as am young and inexperienced.

1) should I be asking for teamsheets?? In my U13 girls game I overheard the two separate managers showing each other their team sheets, but I kept quiet as I didn’t know if me having them was necessary, as I don’t expect dissent/reckless fouls at that age. I’m clearly wrong. In my other 3 games, there was nothing said about teamsheets at all…

2) what age should I give cards/sinbins? An incident a couple of weeks ago when one U12 boys player made 2 borderline reckless challenges that could have easily been a yellow for the 2nd one. I told him to calm down, before he then started moaning at me saying they weren’t fouls. They were. Should I have given a yellow? I don’t know what age cards are given…

Thanks a lot everyone. I really appreciate the helpful advice on this Forum, and any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Have a good day all

 

[GraemeS]

Hi Marcus!

1) This will be down to league rules and will vary. In youth football, managers often confirm eligibility (ie age) of the players with each other - that may be something different to what is considered a team sheet in adult football. Your best bet is to ask whoever is appointing you to games, they may also expect some kind of post-match report or similar that you're not aware of.
Make sure you're also clear on half lengths, substitution rules, # of players per side, ball/pitch/goal sizes and any other tweaks for different age groups. Home manager will tell you X is true, but if away manager disagrees and says Y is true, you need to be the one that knows the correct answer and makes the final call.

2) Cards are on the table at all age levels. That doesn't mean you'll need to use them often, but you should be prepared for the possibility of anything, up to and including straight red cards for Violent Conduct if necessary.

With your specific incident, you absolutely could have justified yellow, but a talking-to is reasonable too. What the player absolutely shouldn't be doing is moaning back at you - you're warning the player what you consider acceptable/unacceptable, that doesn't require their input. At adult football, that response would mean I'd immediately escalate to "warning with the captain" level of the stepped approach - at youth, depending where you are on the pitch and if the captain is treated like a leader or just it being their turn to wear the armband, you can either do this or get the manager involved. Or go direct to a caution if the moaning is dramatic enough, but remember to use sin bins if it ends up being a caution for dissent.

 

[Josh the referee]

On your 2nd question, there's many debates about what age cards should and shouldn't be given on here. My personal opinion is that they should be less frequent below any football which isn't 11-a-side so that tends to be U12 Boys and below, and U12/U13 Girls and below (depending once again on the league). That doesn't mean there shouldn't be any at all because there will be instances of Violent Conduct and Serious Foul Play, which are unavoidable Red Cards as well as instances of YC's or sin-bins.

I've given out, I believe 2 sin-bins in my U11/U12 games which amounts to about 1 every 12 games. There probably should've been a couple of cautions for reckless challenegs but I was slightly hesitant to give these. For context, I've given 23 YCs and 10 RCs in 33 U13, U14 and U15 matches this season so a significant increase, albeit a fair few of those are for managers/coaches.

That being said, if you believe it to be a reckless challenge, then you are well within your right to caution him for the tackle. Like @GraemeS said you can also make use of the stepped approach and give him a stern talking to.

If you were to caution him, you would ask him for his name, record this and then submit this afterwards using WGS (assuming you're in England).

Hope that helps!!

 

[Gamespoiler]

I would advise you to look at the leagues website and find the league handbook. It is really useful to know the specific league rules. At junior level I wouldn't imagine any of the leagues would require you to see team sheets. There is a requirement though for managers to present to the opposition ID cards and team sheet, this can also be done by showing electronic ID's. Some leagues are better at tis than others and some mangers are better too. I would say don't get involved with this, the only benefit to you as a referee seeing team sheets is having a list of names to aid if any of them need a caution. In the event of a caution just follow the procedure that you should've been shown on your course. If you get given the wrong name, that's not your worry.

The other benefit of knowing the league rules is knowing the requirements for barriers at the side of the pitch, how many people can be pitch side of the barrier and who is responsible for managing the side lines. This will be the manager of the team by the way, not you.

I wouldn't worry about cards, if it warrants a card, show it. If it warrants a sin bin, then send the player to the sin bin. The players have to learn.

Prior to being a referee, I was a junior football coach for 12 years and can say from a coach point of view, I would rather the referee sin bin my players if they showed dissent rather than ignore it. That's for any age group. Same with cautions and dismissals. There is a bit of a feeling that it is weak or wrong if a referee shows a card or sends a player to the sinbin. Don't go down that route, if it warrants it, use the tools at your disposal, cards.

Although there are a lot of unpleasant people involved with junior football, the vast majority are doing it for the right reasons and want the children to learn the game and to become better people through football. Part of that is teaching them right from wrong and teaching them what warrants a yellow card, sin bin and red card. Back yourself

 

[JoetheRef]

2) what age should I give cards/sinbins? An incident a couple of weeks ago when one U12 boys player made 2 borderline reckless challenges that could have easily been a yellow for the 2nd one. I told him to calm down, before he then started moaning at me saying they weren’t fouls. They were. Should I have given a yellow? I don’t know what age cards are given…

Thanks a lot everyone. I really appreciate the helpful advice on this Forum, and any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Have a good day all

For me it often depends on the game, most of the time, at the ages you're doing, the game doesn't need a yellow card in order for you to manage it. I am always reluctant to book players at that age. I've had U14 games where a card is very necessary to calm the game down and others (the vast majority) where a stern warning does the job perfectly, even for clear reckless challenges.

Having said that I would give sin bins for dissent at any age group without hesitation, they've got to learn that dissent isn't okay and obviously some things like VC need a red card regardless of age.

 

[MarcusLoveRef]

Thanks a lot everyone, I really appreciate this advice!

 

[SammyT5]

For context, I've given 23 YCs and 10 RCs in 33 U13, U14 and U15 matches this season so a significant increase, albeit a fair few of those are for managers/coaches.

10 RCs is one serious stat. I’ve done 25 youth games on Saturday mornings this season and only ended up with three…
Though I have given 30 YCs so we can probably call it evens given you’ve done 8 more youth games than me.

 

[Josh the referee]

10 RCs is one serious stat. I’ve done 25 youth games on Saturday mornings this season and only ended up with three…
Though I have given 30 YCs so we can probably call it evens given you’ve done 8 more youth games than me.

6 Coaches sent off - 3 for entering the FOP to confront me/Leaving TA, 1 for Offinabus, 1 for Entering the Oppositions TA in an aggressive manner, 1 for Two Cautions!!

1 of those incorrectly I should add which I ensured the County didn't put through because I felt it was an overreaction on my part. We all make mistakes and have to own up to them sometimes!

The other 4 RCs (all for players) break down as 3 for Offinabus and 1 for VC.

At one point thought I was the issue (and maybe I still am ) but then have had multiple people come out to watch me, which I didn't realise until afterwards, and they've had nothing but praise for me so I must be doing something right.

But overall the behaviour of coaches on the sidelines has gotten 10 times worse over the course of this season alone and its extremely alarming!!

 

[santa sangria]

6 Coaches sent off - 3 for entering the FOP to confront me/Leaving TA, 1 for Offinabus, 1 for Entering the Oppositions TA in an aggressive manner, 1 for Two Cautions!!

1 of those incorrectly I should add which I ensured the County didn't put through because I felt it was an overreaction on my part. We all make mistakes and have to own up to them sometimes!

The other 4 RCs (all for players) break down as 3 for Offinabus and 1 for VC.

At one point thought I was the issue (and maybe I still am ) but then have had multiple people come out to watch me, which I didn't realise until afterwards, and they've had nothing but praise for me so I must be doing something right.

But overall the behaviour of coaches on the sidelines has gotten 10 times worse over the course of this season alone and its extremely alarming!!

I hear you. But that is a lot of cards. Have you had referees/assessors come and watch you?

 

[Josh the referee]

I hear you. But that is a lot of cards. Have you had referees/assessors come and watch you?

Yes I've had 1 referee (L4/L5 I can't remember) and 2 league officials come out and watch me. All 3 times had a lot of praise for the way that I referee and some minimal adjustments in terms of positioning, which is always nice to receive.

18 of the 33 games done that I've mentioned have gone without issue and without any cards at all, so it does show that there are about 6 or 7 "trouble" teams and the odd incident that happens outside of those.

Genuinely though, the behaviour of coaches has deteriorated quickly this season and its extremely worrying. Funnily enough all but one are for managers at U13 so there's clearly a trend going on there and maybe they aren't used to having a qualified referee and feel that they're still able to abuse them.

Breaking each sending off down though - The one for entering the Oppositions TA to scream in an U13s face, ended up with him having a 2 month ban for him having to be restrained after me sending him off. The one for offinabus was for calling me a "f***king c**t", the one for 2 cautions was a manager confronting me at full time and then he refused to give me his name (should've probably been a straight red), and 2/3 for entering the FOP were for literally walking onto the pitch after a minor decision and for memory one of them called me a "c**t" too and the other accused of me being racist despite both teams having players of different ethnicities

Not sure in each of the circumstances what should've been done differently but there is a massive issue with behaviour and that's shown with a massive increase of incidents this season. Its gotten to the point where I am genuinely suprised that I haven't been physically assaulted, I've come close to being in one incident and that took 4 months to be sorted!!