One of the beauties of kids’ football is the number of volunteers happy to take on the huge number of often mind-numbingly dull tasks that are essential to keeping the game’s cogs moving. Collecting subs from evasive parents, booking pitches from grumpy councils, liaising with kit suppliers whose consignment of stirrup pumps is stuck in customs, serving lukewarm teas on match days...a veritable mums & dads army jump to these tasks nationwide every weekend.
I’ve done stints at all the above jobs and more before I got the coaching bug, but there’s one job I’ve never dared take on, even though it’s one without which no game would ever go ahead – referee (well two jobs if truth be told...lino is the second one).
The bigger, better-organised Leagues, with the support of local FAs, try to train up as many refs as possible and then allocate them to matches where the abuse they receive matches anything you’ll hear in the adult game.
For years the boys team I run was reffed mostly by teenagers who deemed it preferable to a paper round as a way of supplementing pocket money. For the most part they were very good, and were respected a lot more by wide-eyed 11 & 12 year olds than either of the two most likely alternatives – ‘dad refs’ or League-appointed pensioners.
However, having reached the ripe old age of u15s, the rules dictate that they have to be reffed by fully certified grown ups. So as the average 18-30 year old has better things to be doing with his time...we’re back to the dads and OAPs. And the root of the problem is, many parents, and a worryingly sizeable proportion of managers / coaches, have zero respect for the refs, and are constantly on their case from the very first minute, questioning every decision.
Naturally this rubs off on the players...and only a limited number of the refs have the balls to take decisions they know will prove contentious (and I know I wouldn’t in their shoes, as there’s a real sense that they could take a punch for their pains, more likely from a parent than a player).
This directly affects their decision-making. A classic example is offside. For 95% of games, each team has to supply one ‘dad lino’, none of whom has had the slightest bit of training for the job. Most are genuine, a handful are blatant homers giving the ref as much stick as the other parents...and one in ten if you’re lucky knows the offside rule.
The minute a player strays a foot offside, they start to wave their flag frantically. If the ref, deeming the player not to be interfering with play yet, acknowledges the flag but plays on, they start screaming “Ref! Ref!! REF!!!”. Other parents inevitably join in. The lino will often move 4 or 5 feet onto the pitch, such is his determination to get play stopped. Invariably, the ref blows and gives the offside rather than face the potential confrontation.
The only time I can recall one sticking to his guns and allowing my team a goal in such a situation, saying the scorer had been onside and the offside player not interfering, the opposition manager shouted for all to hear at the end of the game that his lads had been cheated by an outrageous referee’s decision at a vital moment (the score at the time had been 3-1, final score 7-1...). He carried this over to the return game, constantly haranguing the lino we provided. When I pointed out to him that these guys were unpaid volunteers, that without them there would be no games, and that we should therefore cut them some slack, he wouldn’t budge, and accused the man concerned of cheating his team “just like he did in the first game”. I pointed out that the lino wasn’t the ref from the previous encounter, but someone else altogether, and that the previous ref wasn’t even at the game. “So presumably you just think we’re all cheats?” I asked. He chose not to respond, other than to move ten yards away and start again, with his subs inevitably joining in.
Discipline is also an issue. A handful of refs stamp down on swearing and abuse, and issue cards, the majority don’t. I witnessed an under 15s game recently where players from one side swore constantly throughout the match – at each other, at opponents, at parents. Allowed to get away with it, they started on the linesmen...and eventually the ref himself, who did absolutely nothing. They contested his every decision in ever-choicer language, giving him mocking Rooney-style applause when one went their way. I found out later he refs this particular team regularly, so the lads clearly know what they can get away with...so do it (with neither manager nor parents discouraging them).
You may think that u15s is but a step away from adult football, and therefore it’s only to be expected, but let me assure you that much of the above is equally commonplace at younger age groups.
Some of my u15 lads are now training as refs so as they can earn a few quid reffing the youngsters. I recently invited one of them to ref a u11 girls game. Once again, the opposition manager was chuntering away at him under his breath from the first minute. When, about 20 minutes in, I heard him say to some of his parents that the ref was a cheat and blatantly favouring the home team (this when he believed a throw in near half way had been given the wrong way), I found myself saying loudly “he’s not a cheat, he’s a young lad who’s had the initiative to take his ref’s qualifications, and we should be grateful to him, not getting on his case”. One of the opposition mums helpfully said “well if he’s done his exams he shouldn’t be getting so much wrong, should he?”
Lack of respect for authority isn’t a trait readily associated with this country – but lack of respect for match officials is certainly endemic in our football. At the sharp end of grass roots football – the kids’ game – the core problem seems to be the number of adults who can’t differentiate between giving a bit of stick to a professional referee at a professional game, and giving similar stick to a volunteer ref when watching their children play. How can we then expect the kids themselves to show respect?
Our local FA plans to ‘roll out’ the Respect campaign into the youth game over the next month. Every team in every youth League will be getting a pack with a strict set of rules which it is expected to adhere too. It will be fascinating to watch the Leagues and, more importantly, the FA, trying to implement this. Watch the blog for Respect updates..
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