Assistant -1. a person who assists or gives aid and support; helper.
I am lucky, when I referee on my supply league I have two Neutral Assistant Referee’s. These two guys will be honest in what they do and wont cause me problems like the Club Assistant Referee’s you get on a Sunday morning. Well thats the theory.
Nine and a half times out of ten they will be spot on and listen to what you ask them to do. Not try and take over and cause you a problem. However they will and when it goes wrong it really can go wrong. Ive had to examples this season of both ends of the spectrum.
Scenario 1. Push around the edge of the area, im 99% sure that the offence is in the penalty area. However I need confirmation, I have blown and whilst blowing look at my assistant. He has seen me looking for confirmation and gives me a quick flag across the chest and I now know it is inside the box. This was a great flag that was quick told me what I needed to know, and by the time the players had looked the flag had gone. If he had gone high profile and waved the flag retaining it the focus would have been on him and the decision likely challenged.
scenario 2. Defender and attacker are running towards goal, there is a bit of a tussle the ball is cleared and I move with closing the incident down. I hear a shout to look at my assistant. I assume I have missed a offside look across and he is flagging for an attacking free kick, around 30 yards from goal. I go across and he tells me the defender has pulled the attacker back. Now consider that this is central and 30 yards from goal, I am 15 yards away at most and so this is a big call from him. I ask is he sure, he says yes. I say so it must be last man then, no because X will get around (really?). So now im in the position do I take the free kick or restart play (how?). As attention has been brought on to this we have the free kick as it’s going to be hard to move away from this (probably wrong and one im not comfortable with now.
It’s difficult as a Referee if you have never worked with the assistants before. You have 60 to 90 minutes to form a bond with two people you may never have met before, you need to trust one another and work together. However this at times isnt helped by the attitudes of the officials (and I am not saying its the assistant’s fault here, ive experienced it where the Referee can be the jerk) who want to run the game and generally take over. I have also been on contrib games where I have seen experienced assistants try to take over a game, so this isnt just at supply level.
Last week on the constantly improving refworld site there was the 2nd part of how the National List officials are assessed. It’s worth a read
