In a previous blog post I put my views forward on the Respect campaign in football, this was after a meeting I attended which detailed the appeal process for a red card as non existant. Basically, unless you have a Premier League level of coverage at your game, a red card will stand whatever the circumstances. In my teams second league game of the season, everything I feared would happen as a result of this stupid system, happened. I'd like to point out, this is not a "all referees are terrible"-esque post, I like to think I am objective enough to stand back and take all the facts in and leave the emotion of the game aside for a second. During the course of a game, I like to build up a dialogue with a referee. Sometimes it's possible, sometimes it isn't.
I'll start by running you through the events of our game yesterday. My team, Chesterton Legacy, had an away fixture at West End, the league and cup champions for the previous 2 seasons. The week previous they had beaten the team that finished 2nd, 5-4 after starting the game with only 8 players. West End have quality in abundance, for my team, Legacy, getting anything from the game would be an incredibly tall order. The game started tentatively, Legacy went ahead early on but were soon pegged back and the game stood at 1-1. At around 20 minutes in, our goalkeeper was faced with a through ball bouncing up at the edge of the area. He jumped to claim the ball and with this was deemed to move outside the area with the ball in his hands. The goalkeeper protested, then stupidly kicked the ball away and received a yellow card. This was all justified and we have no complaints from the referee in issuing the initial yellow card. The resulting free kick was then scored, making it 2-1 to West End. Obviously frustrated, the goalkeeper picked the ball out of the net and kicked it back to the centre circle while using an expletive - "fuck". This was not directed at anyone and as I'm sure you can imagine, a number of expletives had already been banded around the pitch that morning with wayward passes and mistimed tackles - not uncommon at the level I play at. Not to mention a West End players frustration at a late tackle, screaming "cunt" at the player in question under the nose of the referee.
With the kick of the ball and the use of the word "fuck", the referee has issued a second yellow card to the goalkeeper and sent him off. At this point, I tried to start a dialogue with the referee (in a calm and constructive manner considering the circumstances) and was greeted with "Go away player". I was trying to ask the referee whether he was going to book everyone who swore and if we would see some consistency. The apparent answer, was no. In fairness to my team, while there was some protesting considering the usual swarm of abuse a referees usually get in this situation, more used it and channelled the frustration at such a ridiculous decision into their football. Massive credit must go to the Chesterton Legacy team for this, I've not seen many Sunday morning teams met with such injustice and not use more aggression towards an official.
Obviously this is what the Respect campaign is all about and I fully endorse everything it's trying to promote on the field of play, but my argument has always been that Respect has to work both ways. A referee needs to enter into dialogue with players (or at least the captain), explain his decisions, be consistent throughout and hold his hands up when he is wrong. On the same token, players must respect decisions, even when wrong. I feel our team did this impeccably yesterday. But the system of not being able to appeal a red card is only going to create bad referees. If they cannot be wrong, if they aren't allowed to have objective and constructive criticism of decisions, personal vendettas and blinkered decisions are going to prevail.
An example of the consistency I'm looking for can also fall out of the match we had yesterday. West End won a corner, one of the West End players met the corner with a header and hit the post. When the ball went out of play after this, the West End player punched the floor and screamed "You fucking cunt" right next to the referee. I personally take no issue with this, but as I'd seen my goalkeeper sent off for the same offence I then asked the referee if this was worthy of being booked. His reply was "No, it's different". I asked how and he said "Your goalkeeper was aggressive". I then said "I don't want to drag this out, but if someone screaming 'Fucking cunt' and hitting the floor isn't aggressive, I don't know what is". He looked at me and raised his eye brows, at this point I knew it was pointless following it up, as it probably was me even asking the question in the first place. How is there not something personal in the decision from the referee when this is how he explains himself? After the sending off, even members of the other team were saying how harsh it was. How often do you see both teams agreeing about a harsh decision in Sunday football? It's not usually the beacon of sportsmanship, so when teams can both agree on something it's usually a pretty big indication the referee is in the wrong.
I hate to sound like a basher of referees, some of them are brilliant even at my level of football. They are happy to have banter with the players, explain decisions and build up a good rapport. But M. Rayner who was our referee yesterday morning, has ruined a Sunday morning for someone, cost them a hefty fine and made what was already a big ask of our team a monumental ask.
As it turns out, a spirited and courageous performance from our 10 players earned us a 4-4 draw, the first point we have ever gained against West End. But unfortunately, despite what is probably one of our greatest performances and results against all the odds, the elation of this is marred by some outrageous refereeing. We were all gutted for our goalkeeper and now lose him for a period as he'll be banned. If anyone in the Tucker Gardner Alliance League in Cambridge happens to have M. Rayner as their referee, I'd be interested to hear their views - good or bad. But until a system is in place whereby a referee can be held accountable for their decisions and not just a player for their actions, I fear this will be common place in our game at the grass roots level.
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