Refereeing in the Modern Game

I did not go to Hillsborough and do not want to comment on the game. According to PH, the sending off did not affect the result, so I do not want to overreact to that either, but I would just like to comment upon the difficulty that referees face in the modern game. The framework for my comments is that of 50 years as a spectator.

I began supporting Barnsley FC just over 50 years ago now. The game then was very different to the game we watch now. Now, the players are fitter, quicker and better coached. The game is better understood and that tactical appreciation has led to a much more sophisticated methods of play. But it is not all good. Fifty years ago, courage formed a much larger part of the footballer’s character. Physical contact was encouraged and 50/50 balls were competed for, and usually won by the bravest. There were players in the game then who would not play 10 games a season now because of suspension. Anyone who saw Alan Little play the game will know what I mean, the sort of player who never gave an inch. The question is, has the game improved through the removal of that physical challenge.

After the two most recent sending offs, (Watkins against Forest and Hammill against Wednesday), neither of the players involved in the incidents was hurt, and furthermore, neither of the players complained to the referee that they were hurt. The sending off has become a technical offence which has no victim, and games are being spoilt for watching spectators. It is an example on no crime taking place, no victim being traced and the courts still handing down a punishment.

During my time, there have been periods when referees saw it as their duty to keep 22 players on the field. It was almost impossible to be sent off, except for fighting with an opponent. This led to a level of violent play that was unacceptable and the thugs in the game had to be stopped. The media told us so in the broadsheets over and over again. But for a while there, the game gave me everything I wanted. It was a cauldron of skill and aggression that fulfilled my every emotion. Even though I can see that the game is technically better now, it does not grab my emotions like it did in the past.

The game in England changed as we became less successful internationally. The tradition of physical challenge that was such an important part of the British game was interpreted out of it. Gamesmanship and play acting have replaced physical contact. The game has become different from that codified by our founding fathers who first formed the leagues and who came from clubs in the English Midlands and North West. We play a very different game now from that which was originally conceived, a different game from that which I began watching in the 1960s. It is a game that more closely resembles that which was played in Italy and Spain, a game where gamesmanship, and referee management is all important. It is a game where the rules, which were basically simple and were well understood by all, have been refined and interpreted so that no-one, not even referees, can be sure that they fully understand them any longer. For example, the area on tackling used to be clear. A tackler made contact with the ball first, it was irrelevant how much force was used, or whether both feet were off the ground. I understood that rule. The rule worked because we could all see and judge for ourselves whether a tackle had been made lawfully, because we could all see whether a tackler had made contact with the ball first. The full blooded 50/50 tackle has been consigned to the history books. After a 50/50 tackle now, somebody inevitably ends up having an early shower. Currently, we seem to have an interpretation of the rules that even the law makers cannot agree upon, and the referees are simply caught up in the muddle, having to interpret on the fly in a fraction of a second, whilst sorting out the inevitable flare up between the players that is actively encouraged by club managers in an attempt increase confusion and influence the referees decision. We were all told that the new tackle rules would result in fewer injuries, but it hasn’t. The injuries are just different. Careers are now ended by knee ligament injuries rather than collision injuries, but careers are still being ended by injury.

It is an absolute mess and it is spoiling the game as a spectacle. I want my game back.

The game was codified here and it was done in a way that suited the British taste for the way they wanted the game to be played. It has been changed as foreign administrators have taken over the game and changed its emphasis toward Latin tastes. Our own leaders of the game have allowed the game to be taken away from them because they wanted to compete internationally, even though ours is still the richest game in the world. What we are left with is a foreign sport, run by foreign administrators and dominated by foreign coaches and foreign players. Oh, and an international team that is even further away from international success than it has ever been.

What a mess our beautiful game has become.

 

Perfect summary

of my feelings mate. Norman Hunter and Allan Little would be sent off in almost every game today.

The only slight thing I'd take issue with is that the game is "technically better" today. Nobody in the game today is technically better than King Ronnie was, the difference being that players like him stood out more because they were nimble and quick footed enough to avoid the hard men who were out to get them. The hard men have largely been legislated out of the game, leaving the averagely skilful players to look better than they actually are.

 

Re: Perfect summary

Like most things in life, the game has forgotten why we liked it in the first place and sold out.

 

Since they made some ref's full time, refereeing as got worse.
The Rugby Union ref's are the best by a mile.

 

Spot on.

 

Because they're allowed to referee by players who do not try to exert influence by surrounding them screaming in their face. If the referees were allowed to do their job we'd see a gradual increase in performance. It seems part of their remit is to placate players to manage the game.

 

Natural Justice

I might be forsaking all the goodwill that I have earned with my first post, but here goes.

When it comes to a court of law, you hear a lot of talk about making the punishment fit the crime. Yet in football, a repeat offender, that is, a player that is sent off for a second yellow card, is given a 1 match ban, whilst Hammill and Watkins, who are guilty of victimless crimes receive 3 games. The punishment is arbitrary because the crime and punishment are not linked in the law makers mind.

The team of a player who denies a goal scoring opportunity is punished in three ways. The team has a free kick awarded against it, the offending player is sent from the field and the offending player is banned from the following game. All for something that could have been deliberate, but might equally have been accidental. So, the offending team has been thrice punished, the offended team has not been rewarded with another opportunity to score and all the fans have been punished by having to watch a game that no longer has teams with equal numbers of players, which affects the way both coaches approach the game. Earlier this season, Reading had a player sent off whilst leading 2-0 at Oakwell. It spoilt the rest of the game as a spectacle because They went 4-4-1 and refused all invitations to attack. The teams were actually equally matched at the Reading end of the field, but the fans were short changed for entertainment for the rest of the game. I am just not sure how a business that relies on entertaining its punters can justify making the entertainment worse as part of its method of working.

Lawmakers seem to get a bee in their bonnets about something or other than is not important to the majority of the watching public. They consider ways in which they can improve the game by legislating against a problem, but in the end, it always comes down to one solution. I know, we'll make it a sending off offense, whether the crime is deserving of that punishment or not, and bugger the watching spectators and fans. Well, I liked the game better before all these do-gooders supposedly fixed it.

 

Some very random thoughts.

If you go and stand on the motorway roundabout at Dodworth and look down at the traffic, you’d think someone would have to be mad to want to drive in it amongst those cars going at 70/80/90 mph. It looks chaotic and dangerous. When you’re on the motorway, and going along at the same speed, it becomes more relative. I wonder if that’s how referees see it sometimes when they see athletes who are swifter of movement and of mind than themselves. They can’t contemplate reacting as quickly as the players do. The old maxim “if you go in hard you won’t get hurt” seems to have vanished. But having said that, do we want to return to an era when the likes of Eddie Gray and George Best could be hacked down at will by players like Ron “Chopper” Harris? I’m damn sure I don’t. If I want to see lots of physical contact, I can go watch rugby or wrestling (sorry JLWBL, but I wouldn’t!)

And moving on from the motorway, have you ever made your way out of Oakwell early if we were getting a pasting? (And sorry again, because I know such action would be anathema to many on here). Have you ever pondered on your way out how the game looks from pitch level? We in the stands have a less than perfect view, but the referee’s view is hopeless, considering what he has to adjudicate upon, and the athleticism of those he is judging. And yet the Sky and MOTD aficionados are able to replay every decision from every angle, in slow motion, umpteen times, so they can look clever and crib a referee who has to judge these things in real time once only from an imperfect angle. The case for a video review system of some kind is absolutely unassailable. To crib referees without giving them the benefit of it is tantamount to bullying.

And all these things feed in to the great referee conspiracy theory. They are against us because we are a small club, because we haven’t a long history in the top flight, or simply because we are Barnsley. What a load of crap. Let’s man up and be more gracious until we give the referees the tools to do a proper job.

Rant over.

 

Rugby Union referees (and in my opinion Rugby League referees) are quite rightly lauded in this thread but they have the benefit of both respect and replays.

There is no reason why both respect and replays can't be imported into football.

You are completely spot on.

Who gives a toss if it takes a minute or two to get something absolutely right?

Plus it would be ridiculous to go back to the old days of leg breaking tackles. These footballers playing on manicured grass are full on athletes these days, and the fans would be the first to berate them if they weren't.

 

Agreed

 

Marvellous, marvellous post Red Rain.

I hate how deeply embedded gamesmanship, play-acting and cheating are in the game. Whenever I hear "there was contact", "he had a right to go down" etc it drives me mad. And a little sad.

 

I resembled a nodding donkey reading that.

 

Shame more ex players didn't become refs , it would surely help them referee better

 

Re: Perfect summary

All of these things invariably go against us.

Can you remember a single incident where a Barnsley player dished out treatment like that and got away with it? I certainly can't.

 

Well said that man.

The standard of refereeing is quite poor but you can understand why as the goalposts seem to be constantly shifting.

Gamesmanship or to be more blunt cheating drives me mad. There should be retrospective action to punish the cheats.

I have a pet theory that the majority of all progress is making the world worse not better. Football is as good an example of this as any.

 

Re: Natural Justice

Reading should have had a second player sent off for stamping on Hourihane's (?) foot. He got a yellow card for a foul worse than either Hammill or Watkins got sent off for.

 

If a player can be retrospectively punished for a foul that a referee missed, then why is a player not retrospectively booked for a cheating offence that a referee misses? Thinking about the Ibramhimovic (SP!) deliberate handball last night that Man U scored from. They could also go for the players surrounding the referee in the same game (I counted 4-5 Utd players at one point) and punish them. If they start getting suspensions as a result of these actions, even the thickest player will get the idea eventually and stop doing it.

 

Re: Perfect summary

Aye he was a bit tasty, but that was the norm back then.