The Referee

Ive today been out in the FA Cup at Stamford vs Spalding. There wasn’t a great deal for me to do as an assistant. I think if flagged for 3 offsides and 1 free kick. Although Stamford won 5-0, Spalding had a couple of chances to pull goals back and also 2 of the 5 were own goals! Speaking of the FA Cup Ive just seen that Shepshed drew 1-1 today and so it looks like Tuesday’s game is now off.

This is a shame as its a game lost and as midweek games go Shepshed is ideal as its on the way home from work. As is Loughbrough where i was last Tuesday, although nearly I wasnt.

When I got the ground at 6.30 there was a power cut in the area! The club rang the power company who informed us that we should have power soon and around 7.20 it came back on! The game was a great game to Referee. Loughborugh Uni were playing some really good flowing football, and if there was a pull or an infringement 9 out of 10 times there was an advantage to be played. Bartley Green were also attacking and generally getting on with it, however when the lost the ball it was down to Loughborugh to lose it for them to get it back. This led to some frustration and having spoken to 3 Bartley players in a 10 minute period I had to caution a player for dissent. What he said wasnt all that bad dissent wise, however it was about match control. The game then seemed to calm down with Loughborugh going in 2-0 at half time.

Now sods law says if your going to caution a player for dissent or a technical offence like time-wasting, and your only going to have one more caution. Its going to be the same player. This turned out to be the case when after about 60 minutes as a Lougborugh player went to clear the ball he caught him late running into the kicking leg. A player did say this was harsh, I said do you agree it was a caution, he said I guess. So you dont disagree with that, unfortunately it was his 2nd one.

At this point Bartley had pulled a goal back and were pushing for an equalizer but it wouldnt come for them. There was a moment about 15 minutes from the end where Loughborugh thought they had scored however the player was well offside. Unfortunately this wasnt the case when a Bartley player headed the ball back towards his goal and a Loughborugh player collected it only for my assistant to signal him offside.

With a few minutes remaining the Uni side got a 3rd goal and killed the game.

I was pleased with how the game went, it was easy to read and the attitude of the players generally let the game manage itself. I was a bit disappointed not to get an assessment from the game. Especially as my game next week has now changed and im not at Bidulph in the MFA rather than Darlaston in the West Mids.