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Referees

Michael Hill

Do you operate your weekly sessions with qualified referees ?

Our club often makes use of players who may be injured or just have players refereeing their game as they play. Our sessions often involve 4 pitches on the go at the same time varying from 6 a side to 8 a side so getting 4 referees is often difficult. Recently a couple of club notices have been circulated asking players to improve their behaviour towards our volunteer refs. Obviously as an experienced referee I try to help with advice and guidance where I can to the volunteers but often the issue is not the limited experience/knowledge of the volunteer ref but more the lack of knowledge about law from our members, even the fundamentals of not walking and non contact are not understood. 

I am not advocating that all sessions should be run under strict tournament conditions (not possible without qualified referees at all sessions) but what measures have others put in place to help create a safe environment for both players and those reffing club sessions?

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    I think you probably have a more unique setup than most. 4 simultaneous pitches? That's quite something. The most we have in the Summer months would be 2 pitches.

    Do We use qualified refs? 
    The answer to that is Yes. Albeit recently qualified. But in the past we didn't. As we all like to play we tend to split the hour into 3 x 20 mins sessions. And have 3 different refs for each 20 min session. That way we don't have to ref the entire hour. We also forego any subs to someone doing a stint. We tend to have a more experienced ref for session 1. Less experienced one for middle session and then someone very strict for the last one. As the last one is always the more challenging. 

    Do we have issues with lack of knowledge of the game from the players. In our case no, not really. What I try and do and encourage others refs to do is to explain decisions briefly and also encourage questions. Note questions, not rants, moans or comments. Very different. We tend to have pretty much the same players every week. So that works for us. 

    Do we run the sessions under strict tournament conditions? Absolutely not. Recreational sessions we do allow quite a bit of leeway as long as it is safe and doesn't compromise safety. As we really want the folks to have fun and enjoy it. Who care if an 80 yr old runs a tad. I mean, good luck if they can run at that age! :-) 
    These sessions though we are very strict on contact, tackling from behind/side and we also limit the power of a pass or shot on safety grounds. Everyone accepts it, so it works for us. We also limit touches now to 4. Seems a good number from experience.

    The more competitive sessions we are very strict on conduct. By that I mean, attitude to fellow players and especially respect to the officials. I've personally sent people home if they don't comply after a quiet chat. It rarely rarely happens and it's something we stop the game for when there is a break to tell the player to think about their actions, where they are and why they are here. 

    If I had someone who was a repeat offender for behaviour to a volunteer ref, I would have them reffing more often and if still doing so I'd be more than happy for them to find another club personally. 

    Not sure if that helps or not, but that's how things run/walk at our club.