WiisardNic
Active Member
Had a couple weeks off to just recharge my batteries, and came back to I think my best weekend in my 2 years so far.
Did a reserve grade game where everyone was quite clean, just one yellow card to give out for a bad slide tackle (that was a bit mitigated by it starting to get wet, but still), and then first grade game went well, until the last ten minutes.
As I said, I'm two years in, and haven't had to issue a red card. But in the space of a minute, issued my first two.
Yellow team's #9 just scored to go 4-3 up just under 10 minutes left to play. But, had spent a lot of the previous ten minutes (when they ran out of players on their rolling subs due to injury) slowing down the game a lot. They were basically all on their last warning before going in the book (had issued one player a yellow card during this time). One player on the opposing Green team (#5) wasn't taking too well to that and seemed to be angrily trying to milk anything he could and I had to split him up from what looked like a starting altercation.
Anyways, the Yellow team scored the aforementioned goal, and as we are all heading back to get into position for the kick off, and I noticed 3-4 players from the Green team restraining #5 along the sideline while he was trying to yell and what not (I'm standing at the bottom of the centre circle in the Green half), while 3-4 Yellow team players are slowly walking back #9. The pack of Green players are closer to me, so I'm about to start heading over to them, when #5 just yells out at the top of his lungs "You're just a f***ing c***!"
I'm immediately thinking to myself I can't have directed swearing like that on my pitch, plus he has already been flaring up more than anyone else, and pull the red card out straight away. But the Green team are incensed! This happened in front of their technical area (and their supporters are just behind that, which seemed to be mostly player's girlfriends), and just start yelling at me things like "Oh, but he started it!" "He was baited!" "What about him?!"
Because this was on the sideline, the coach technically came on the field of play (probably by like a meter or so), and in his defense, he very calmly tried to inform me that his player was being baited, etc etc. By rights and my competitions DDR, that's entering the FOP to confront a match official, but I let it slide because I thought if I sent the coach off for that, I might have lost control of the end of the match. Anyways, I tell the Green coach, "That's fine. I couldn't hear him like I could your player, but I'll have a word with him."
Turned back towards the rest of the field, and start heading towards the Yellow #9, and before I could say anything, still about 10m away from him, he flashes his rude finger towards the Green technical area. Lucky me, I AR'd a local state Premier League fixture where the referee sent off a goal scorer for doing the same thing to supporters goading him to miss a penalty, so I just thought, "Right, this is an easy red then," and sent off Yellow #9 as well. Initially he was bewildered, but I quickly told him that its for the gesture he just did, and he said, "Fair enough, I shouldn't have retaliated," and walked off.
Rest of the game was filled with more time-wasting by Yellow, and issued another 3 YC's, and the game ended 4-3.
---
Despite having a bit of a flare up at the end of the game, I think I handled it all really well. Yellow team weren't upset about the cards, they knew what they were doing, and just basically accepted the yellow cards (and red card) and just rotated who was wasting-time.
Didn't hear any rumblings from the Green team themselves, but as I'm filling out the match card at the end of the game, I did hear the girlfriends talking about how the referee "was clearly biased" ...
Did a reserve grade game where everyone was quite clean, just one yellow card to give out for a bad slide tackle (that was a bit mitigated by it starting to get wet, but still), and then first grade game went well, until the last ten minutes.
As I said, I'm two years in, and haven't had to issue a red card. But in the space of a minute, issued my first two.
Yellow team's #9 just scored to go 4-3 up just under 10 minutes left to play. But, had spent a lot of the previous ten minutes (when they ran out of players on their rolling subs due to injury) slowing down the game a lot. They were basically all on their last warning before going in the book (had issued one player a yellow card during this time). One player on the opposing Green team (#5) wasn't taking too well to that and seemed to be angrily trying to milk anything he could and I had to split him up from what looked like a starting altercation.
Anyways, the Yellow team scored the aforementioned goal, and as we are all heading back to get into position for the kick off, and I noticed 3-4 players from the Green team restraining #5 along the sideline while he was trying to yell and what not (I'm standing at the bottom of the centre circle in the Green half), while 3-4 Yellow team players are slowly walking back #9. The pack of Green players are closer to me, so I'm about to start heading over to them, when #5 just yells out at the top of his lungs "You're just a f***ing c***!"
I'm immediately thinking to myself I can't have directed swearing like that on my pitch, plus he has already been flaring up more than anyone else, and pull the red card out straight away. But the Green team are incensed! This happened in front of their technical area (and their supporters are just behind that, which seemed to be mostly player's girlfriends), and just start yelling at me things like "Oh, but he started it!" "He was baited!" "What about him?!"
Because this was on the sideline, the coach technically came on the field of play (probably by like a meter or so), and in his defense, he very calmly tried to inform me that his player was being baited, etc etc. By rights and my competitions DDR, that's entering the FOP to confront a match official, but I let it slide because I thought if I sent the coach off for that, I might have lost control of the end of the match. Anyways, I tell the Green coach, "That's fine. I couldn't hear him like I could your player, but I'll have a word with him."
Turned back towards the rest of the field, and start heading towards the Yellow #9, and before I could say anything, still about 10m away from him, he flashes his rude finger towards the Green technical area. Lucky me, I AR'd a local state Premier League fixture where the referee sent off a goal scorer for doing the same thing to supporters goading him to miss a penalty, so I just thought, "Right, this is an easy red then," and sent off Yellow #9 as well. Initially he was bewildered, but I quickly told him that its for the gesture he just did, and he said, "Fair enough, I shouldn't have retaliated," and walked off.
Rest of the game was filled with more time-wasting by Yellow, and issued another 3 YC's, and the game ended 4-3.
---
Despite having a bit of a flare up at the end of the game, I think I handled it all really well. Yellow team weren't upset about the cards, they knew what they were doing, and just basically accepted the yellow cards (and red card) and just rotated who was wasting-time.
Didn't hear any rumblings from the Green team themselves, but as I'm filling out the match card at the end of the game, I did hear the girlfriends talking about how the referee "was clearly biased" ...
