referential 3/losing my rag

I’ve thought about very little else other than Sunday morning for the last 72 hours. 

It was a game that descended into players throwing mud at me, a threat of being beaten up after the match, the constant to-ing and fro-ing of criticism and ridicule. 

It ended really badly, with me a little concerned about walking from the pitch back to my car. And I don’t worry easily. 

I felt isolated. Alone. Such is the refereeing experience, I suppose. A friend to no-one in a space where you’ve got to try and get along with everyone. Neutrality’s a bitch. 

There were men who thought I wasn’t neutral. Men who thought that I was, at best, inadequate but more likely biased or vindictive. I did ask at one point: ‘Do you really think I care who wins a Nottingham Sunday League Division Four game with two groups of men I’ve never met? 

I should have kept my mouth shut. I hear that a lot. 

With the score at 3-3 in an already fractious game, I gave a penalty against the home side, Wollaton. They were, at best, displeased – then definitely vindictive. I made a mental note of the comments: 

• ‘You’re shit, ref.’
• ‘Ref, are you alright?’
• ‘Ref, did you go out last night?’
• ‘Ref, you look like you’re here for WWF’ (not bad, quite funny)
• ‘Me and you are going to chat after the match…’
• (Threatening, and to no-one in particular) ‘He doesn’t know who he’s talking to…’
• ‘Everyone’s tough this side of the white line…’
• ‘You are thick as shit, ref’
• ‘Why are you wearing leggings, you poofta?’

I’ve already Amazoned ‘digital voice recorder’ so I can tape the threats and abuse in future games. 

Here’s something you don’t hear very often: the jeopardy involved in being the object of hatred is invigorating and funny – it kinda makes you feel alive. I suppose that’s why Piers Morgan does it.

At least it’s recognition and as an increasingly anonymous middle aged man, it’s kind of validating.

 

I should have turned the other cheek to these barbs. I should have used the sin bin earlier in the match. I didn’t, I got involved. 

Lost my rag. 

The origins of ‘lost my rag’ are interesting and, with most of these things, obscured by time. The most recent definition is related to rag as a word for tongue, i.e. losing control of your tongue. But the word ‘rag’ was also a word for banknotes, so it may also reference the anger of losing one’s money. 

I lost my rag, and found my tongue. Let the games commence. Here were my retorts: 

• ‘Why are you talking to me like that when your Mam clearly cuts your hair…’
• ‘If you’d have spoken to me like that when I was 25, I’d have knocked you out…’
• (To the threat of chatting after the match) ‘No problem, son…’
• ‘Let’s say I am shit. Look at the pitch, it’s shit. You’re a substitute in a Sunday League Division Four game, do you think you might be shit too?’
• ‘If you want a better referee, play at a higher level’.

I was trying to talk to these lads in a way they were talking to me, showing them what it felt like. It backfired. 

To be honest, they had a point. I wasn’t great. I’d missed loads of stuff. My mind wasn’t right from the start. I’d turned up to find an awful muddy pitch, the smell of weed, players going through really poor warm-ups. A coach stinking of alcohol.

 

 

I felt like: ‘This group don’t deserve my best. What’s the point if they can’t be bothered?’

The home linesman even took a phone call on his mobile mid-match. When I asked him to stop, he yelled at me: ‘I’m on the phone to my Dad’ as though that I was being unreasonable asking him to hang up. 

He was one of those lads who turn up to football so they can shout at a uniform. To him, I was the teacher, the copper, the parent who’d tried to guide him and then given up. I was just the latest incarnation of authority. Shame, when he got on the pitch, he had an excellent left foot. I whispered to him, ‘great pass that, son’ and he beamed back at me in surprise. He was a boy who’d been given too much stick and not enough carrot. I suppose that us authority figures have to take some of the blame for producing such angry young men. 

I think part of me was angry too. Angry that these young men were wasting their football youth, hungover and not giving their best, not applying themselves. I was angry that I did exactly the same thing when I was their age. 

Here’s the crux of my meditation on the game. 

I’ve only just realised, after 72 hours of picking things apart, that I was I was refereeing as a player, one of the lads. I need to referee as a referee – dispassionate, controlled, neutral. It’s really, really difficult. If I’m going to do this, I need to hold myself to higher standards than the players. I also needed to keep my mouth shut, to not react when every fibre wants to fight and to win a battle of wits versus players. 

On reflection, I should have refereed matches played by women and children first, rather than the sinking ship I found myself on on Sunday morning. It’s clear that I still need refereeing water wings; I should never have jumped in at the deep end. I was always bound to sink, not swim.

One last thing, I was angry that those players couldn’t see that I was trying my best, that they couldn’t see ME. They saw only my uniform (old school retro adidas from the early Eighties. One of the players told me I looked like an American wrestling referee…. damn.) and not the person. It’s hard not to take things personally, really hard.

I’ve spoken to my mates about it: ‘Jack it in Paul, it’s not good for your mental health’, ‘I don’t really understand why you’re doing it…’

I don’t understand why I’m doing it either. I hope that reason will unveil itself in due course.