A Year to the Week
Referee’s appointments can be a funny old thing. You may Referee a team a lot during a season and then never get them again (Alsager for me) . Or it may be you seem to have the team against the same opposition all the time (Stapenhill vs Thurnby home and away and then away the following season). This weekend I was at Bolehall a year to the week since I was there for the first and last time.
Bolehall Swifts were playing Continental Star. As I dont regularly Referee in the Midland Combination I knew very little about these teams and a lunch time spent researching them didnt help. Mind you I do have another research source at the moment in that I currently work with someone who plays for a Comb side and has played a lot of these teams in previous seasons.
The game started off very even with both sides trying to attack, however weren’t really creating any real clear cut chances. After 12 minutes a Bolehall player felt he should have had a free kick. The Star player had come from behind him and poked the ball away along the players side. While the players leg was a bit high, there was no risk to the Bolehall player. However a Bolehall defender from some 30 yards away shouted “Open your Fcuking eyes!”. I was clear who the player was and so stopped play and issued a caution for dissent. A Bolehall player then asked “so how am I going to restart play”. Well that was simple, indirect free kick from where the player was (about 40 yards from their goal). when I said this, Bolehall gave their player quite a rollocking.
I was a bit wary of this caution so early for dissent. I felt that I could end up with a few and Id set my stall now. However I couldnt avoid a caution if I wanted to keep control. As it happend that was the only dissent I received all game.
There was a few committed challenges during the first half and I had to speak to the Bolehall 4. All his challenges were committed sliding challenges, and while he won the ball every time I could see a mistimed challenge coming, however this didnt happen.
The only other caution I ended up giving was to a Star player just before half time. I had played an advantage to Bolehall after a foul and a Star player came in and took the now in possession player out with a rash challenge.
I was surprised that I didn’t get more dissent during the 2nd half considering I gave 2 penalty’s. Bolehall were winning 1-0 with about 15 minutes to go when at a Corner a Star player was brought down. I got some dissent from the keeper who felt he was fouled, but not really from anyone else. Star scored this to make it 1-1.
Then less than a minute later a Bolehall player was on his own in the Star penalty area. However the defender was constantly holding him, he couldn’t break free and the player wasn’t letting go, so Penalty. I did get a couple of players say “but he didn’t go down!” however I explained that is irrelevant and if it was outside the area it would have been a free kick.
This game had to be one of the most enjoyable games I had done in a long time. Both sides tried to play some good football and were a pleasure to Referee. Both sides were happy to talk to as well and accepted decisions. If only all games could be like this.
