Game #4.
Nottingham YEL U13s: Division Two
West Bridgford Pumas 2 Hilton Harrier 2
Body Count
Yellow 0
Red 0
Sin Bin 1
Having had a ‘challenging match’* with adults last weekend, on Saturday morning I refereed a U13s boy’s game.
Part of the reason was to try and improve my refereeing in a more forgiving environment, part was that I wanted to see where the hyper-competitive, confrontational and aggressive adult men I enjoyed last week came from.
There were two moments from the game that lived on after my final whistle quietened.
The first was when the ball went out for what looked like a corner. The attacking player, let’s call him Player One, owned up that it had touched him last on the way out and it was, in fact, a goal kick. When he was running back into position, I made sure I ran alongside him and told him how much I appreciated it. I fist bumped him, deciding that it was the best way to say: ‘I’m old but kinda cool, and thanks’. Do you know, he looked a bit sheepish about being honest? It made me think: at what point does that child become the man that cheats? At what point does classic masculinity kick in and change the exchange rate – at what point does a man swap his personal integrity for the price of a corner kick? It seems such a meagre return.
The second, Player Two, responded to conceding a free kick by telling me his opponent ‘looked like a faggot’. I sin-binned him immediately, it was an easy decision to make – and the first time, as a referee, I felt like a guide rather than just an arbiter. This was an excellent chance to course-correct a young player, to make him think about his language and the effect it has on other players (and indeed himself).
I’ve been doing dry January and went for a 0% beer on Friday night. The pub was 95% male and I was with my (female) partner. I talked to her about the lack of space where working class males can congregate away from females and suggested that the pub and football were traditional spaces currently in a state of erosion. She told me that neither of those spaces should be protected, and is, of course correct.
It made me think: where do men teach boys to be more like Player One and less like Player Two?
It feels like masculinity has never been in a greater state of flux. It feels that, while we’re bombarded with messages about what being a modern woman is, it’s difficult to know what being a man should be. Or perhaps I just need to read another newspaper other than The Guardian.
On Saturday morning, I watched these U13s playing football and thought: where else can young men congregate away from the female gaze and consider what it actually is to be male with all its current challenges and contradictions?
When Player Two suggested I shouldn’t give a free kick against him because his opponent: ‘looked like a faggot’, it made me think about who was further down the road to modern masculinity: Player One displaying integrity or the Player Two displaying homophobia. Given what happened last week, you’d have to say Player Two more closely resembled what it is to be a man on a football pitch – I think it’s my job as a referee to preach a new gospel (I have started to ask my partner to call me The Archbishop of Football). I need to be part of a generation who will guide these men, young and should-know-better, to a new way of thinking and being – to be happier men.
Perhaps Player Two was just indulging in a bit of ‘Hegemonic Masculinity’ and assigning feminine traits to his opponent. In sin-binning him I (along with two excellent coaches who understood that this was a fork in the road) was trying to show him a new masculinity – one that’s inclusive and diverse, a growth mindset rather than hegenomic’s masculinity’s fixed.
It made me think about young men’s socialisation. Do we now need safe spaces where young men can re-define masculinity in their own image? Surely we need to create an environment where the integrity shown by Player One is more actively celebrated until it becomes the norm. I should have told him ‘never lose your integrity, son’. Maybe next time.
We just need to try and make sure they don’t become the Sunday League players I witnessed last week. Perhaps I’ve found a reason that I had to go through Game #3’s shitshow.
Some people might say that, in calling his opponent a faggot, Player Two was just giving him a little stick. Ironically, they’d be, sort of, right. A derivation of the word faggot has been used since the 13th Century. Originally from the Greek, phakelos (meaning bundle), a faggot is the name for a bundle of sticks used for fuel. These sticks were often collected by elderly widowers who made a small living by selling them as firewood. After laying dormant in Britain, the phrase was rekindled in the early 20th Century as part of American slang to described a gay man.
The game finished all square. I felt like I got most of the big calls right but when it’s 2-0 with just six minutes left, it’s hard not to feel like one affected the result. With the score 2-1, I gave a handball 30 yards out. The player scored direct from the kick and I got an icy chill down my spine thinking ‘handball’s definitely a direct free kick, isn’t it?’ It is. I think refereeing is best when one is anonymous. I tried not to be part of the result, but sometimes you just can’t get out of the way of it.
Then again, does it really matter? If I’ve been part of making Player One feel good about his integrity and Player Two to question his homophobia, isn’t that reason for everyone to feel okay about wearing a 2-2?
*I’ve discovered ‘a challenging match’ is a euphemism for a fucking nightmare.