Welcome to the September Meeting. It was pleasing to see a good attendance at our last meeting, and a number of new members.
It is important to make our new members welcome, so if you see a new face please go over and have a chat.
The magazine this month is our largest issue since we started. Initially, I struggled for articles, and could not seem to find anything written about referees, despite researching a number of magazines and papers.
Just at the moment I cannot seem to fit all the various articles I have into the magazine.
It seems referees are being talked about, scrutinised and analysed more than ever before. At the last meeting we touched on the new Sky sports interactive, I recently saw an article for Sky sports, the main selling point in the article was to be able to replay controversial incidents from any angle. All this puts more pressure on the referee, not only that but the main focus is on the referee, not the players. How often have we watched a game, and when the game is over that the first thing the 'experts' comment upon is the referee's performance.
We have out on the pitch people who may be being paid £20,000 a game, although the person who is analysed the most and has more pressure put on them is a person who is paid about £500.
So how does this affect us locally, all the local footballers are influenced by the television and consequently the first thought after the game is the referee.
I saw an example of this last week, a team were leading 1-0 and the other team scored from a corner in the 47th minute to make the score 1-1. The goal was not disputed, it was a clear near post header from a corner. The referee played 4 minutes of time in total and the game ended 1-1. After the game the manager of the team who had lost ran up to us and called the referee a cheat and said he robbed them of the victory, as he had played 4 minutes injury time (during the game there had been 5 substitutions plus a couple of stoppages). During this ranting and raving the defender who did not mark the forward at the corner walked off with the ring of well played and bad luck ringing in his ears, from the comments of the losing manager I think the particular referees ears will still be ringing now!
A sign of the times.
Happy Refereeing