Welcome to the February meeting.

Whilst refereeing over the last few weeks I have recalled an incident which happened when I first started refereeing. Bob Cooper came to watch me and gave me some advice. He told me in a football match there are three halves the first half, the second half and the last 10 minutes.

Over the years I have seen how true this is, especially in the North West Trains League. In a number of my recent games I have looked at my watch with 10 minutes to go and thought the match has gone satisfactorily and there is a chance to escape without the usual abuse, only for an incident to occur in the "last half" or last 10 minutes.

When refereeing and approaching the end of the game many players will ask how long to go. Whenever you advise the players there is only 10 minutes remaining it appears to start some sort of chain reaction. This is the last 10 minutes the players have, usually until next week.

Because of the extra passion involved, this invariably provokes reaction and as you are walking off the pitch, neither players nor managers have had the time to accept your decisions before the end of the match. I had a recent game in the NWT league where I sent a player off for a second caution, the first caution was for the player kicking the ball 50 yards away, straight forward and the second caution was for a late challenge. Again straightforward, although after the game I had the Chairman of the club in the dressing room. A few weeks later I refereed a further NWT match and sent a player off, although this was in the first half, after the game I did not receive any abuse.

From my experience it appears, when players and mangers judge your performance they mainly remember what happened in the last few minutes.

Therefore when you are refereeing a game and look at your watch and it says 80 minutes gone, don't think "yes, done OK today", it is probably better to reserve some energy for what is usually the hardest 10 minutes of the match.

Regards, Alan Budenberg