This weekend was FA Trophy weekend and I was assistant at Leamington vs Banbury. This is a reasonably local derby with 20 miles between the two towns. Having read on the message boards during the week Leamington were hoping for a decent crowd and they would be happy with the 700 that attended.
The game itself kept me busy. I only had the one offside to signal for, but play seemed to want to stick over my side of the pitch. There was also a couple of was it out or in play decisions which gave me some calls to make.
One thing that was interesting about the game was that early on the Referee set his stall out with players pinching yards at throw in’s. He stamped this out early and was consistent. The assessor said afterwards he wondered if he would carry on with it, however he didnt need to as they go the message early on and stopped trying to pinch distance. It was good to see that players do take the hint and adjust.
Posted by Nick Rogers on November 20, 2007 at 10:18 am
Hi, always interesting to see/hear an officials point of view.
As we do whole match DVDs and monthly highlight DVDs of all the Brakes games I thought and you colleagues might like to get a copy of the game you officiated -as some officials have already done.
My recollection of the Banbury game was as you commented the ref made his point early on and the game was the better for it.