Haven't posted in a while but enjoy the reads. This topic is totally relevant to me. My daughter who is an excellent ref was only doing small sided games. Easy peezy. She is 18 going to first year university and I challenged her to do big sided games, she said she would do it if I did it. So I did! Even saw @knvb last week and said I was following in his footsteps which maybe isn't wise but I digress...
I personally love it. I do mostly U-14 to 18 games up to Metro. However, the bitching is real. If any of you know me, that doesn't bother me. I just smile and keep going.
However to an 18 year old girl or heck to a 14 or 15 year old kid, verbal abuse is awful. That is why we aren't keeping refs. For instance a coach from a team went ballastic on my daughter after a game arguing over a yellow card she gave to their team during the game. The manager came in as well and was abusive. Thank goodness, the other teams manager was there and cooled things off to a degree. After hearing the story, my daughter said it was strange because the game wasn't even close. The abusive coach and manger team won 6-2. My kid did report them , B.C. soccer gave them 3 games but of course they appealed and who knows where it ends. The point is there was NO reason to do this.
My daughter is still reffing and we need women refs, good ones. I admit I wasn't great when I was coaching at times towards officials, I understand the will to win but this referee shortage will continue if parents and coaches don't improve their attitude and behaviour towards young referees. So what are we left with: old guys who are slow, can't keep up with the play and generally call nothing. And guess what, they do 6-8 games a weekend. Give me a young ref over these guys any day of the week!
I personally love it. I do mostly U-14 to 18 games up to Metro. However, the bitching is real. If any of you know me, that doesn't bother me. I just smile and keep going.
However to an 18 year old girl or heck to a 14 or 15 year old kid, verbal abuse is awful. That is why we aren't keeping refs. For instance a coach from a team went ballastic on my daughter after a game arguing over a yellow card she gave to their team during the game. The manager came in as well and was abusive. Thank goodness, the other teams manager was there and cooled things off to a degree. After hearing the story, my daughter said it was strange because the game wasn't even close. The abusive coach and manger team won 6-2. My kid did report them , B.C. soccer gave them 3 games but of course they appealed and who knows where it ends. The point is there was NO reason to do this.
My daughter is still reffing and we need women refs, good ones. I admit I wasn't great when I was coaching at times towards officials, I understand the will to win but this referee shortage will continue if parents and coaches don't improve their attitude and behaviour towards young referees. So what are we left with: old guys who are slow, can't keep up with the play and generally call nothing. And guess what, they do 6-8 games a weekend. Give me a young ref over these guys any day of the week!