which said...

I was playing in a amateur inter-service football match yesterday which was refereed by a Championship referee. After the match both teams and the officials had a drink in the bar afterwards and I took the opportunity to ask him a few questions about the job and to gain a better understanding of the thought process of the officials in the game.

Firstly, I asked him how do the officials take the abuse from the players, managers and fans throughout the game and what does he think of the scrutiny they are under. He stated that as all the referees are now microphoned up its difficult to hear what the crowd are saying when all 20,000 are shouting. He says its easier to hear when 1 individual calls him a w**ker than everyone screaming different things at him. With regards the players, he says its generally all friendly before and after the game and the way the players are during the game is, for the most part, not taken off the pitch. Possibly the worst job is being the 4th official who effectively stands there to be abused by both managers, but most referees swear back at the managers if they are doing it to them. He felt that most referees need a certain amount of arrogance as well as strong belief in their decisions

I asked what the scrunity is like, and he explained that all Premeirship Referees are in a separate 'referee table' to the other referees and officials (of which there around 202 of them). The rest of the referees are ranked based on their performances and missing a crucial decision such as a clear penalty or a certain sending off means that they can quite easily drop from say 30th on the list to 170th based on the one decision. So for the most part Championship refeeres are affected by bad decisions, whereas Premiership referees are less so.

One thing he thinks that most football fans forget is that referees themselves are all fans of the game, indeed a lot of people who go into refereeing are those who did not make it as players either because of injury at a young age or just not making the grade. Interestingly, the referees meet up every 2 weeks for their management meeting and amongst the referees they all play 5-a-side against each other. Indeed they used to have an 11-a-side team before someone flattened and injured Mark Clattenberg and the association stopped it.

I then asked about what games are excluded for referees and he stated that is always the team they support and their closest rivals. For example (believe it or not) Howard Webb is a Rotherham United fan and Mark Halsey is a Bolton fan so obviously they are not allowed to referee those games. I also asked about the training regimes that referees go through and he explained it is pretty tough and a lot of the top referees actually train with Premiership first teams (Mark Halsey at Bolton) is an example.

One interesting thing I learned (apologies if people already know this) but if more than 3 players crowd the referee during a match, the FA take retrospective action and fine the clubs.

---------------

So that would be Norwich fined for both the last 2 matches, correct?

Posted By: jAC, Apr 13, 16:42:41