952 matches called off and 700 games postponed. So, just your average Non League week in January. Chances are if you were off to a lower league football game this week, it would have been called off, yet chances also are unless you were at Histon v Swansea, you won’t have heard the referee explain the reasons why.
The most important factor for me is players’ safety, said one P. Crossley, match official, and I think we’d all go along with that. Problem being there was a whole lot of people who failed to agree the players were in danger and a week later are probably still arguing over that single decision.
Now I wasn’t there, I didn’t have a meteorologist alongside me, I’m not trained in the laws or rules of the game AND have no idea whether Phil Crossley was right or not but what I would applaud him for is coming out and telling the massed ranks why he made the decision. Can you imagine if that happened every week?
There’s been plenty of calls lately that my team, Chelmsford City, have had too much extra time. Would this still be the case if each of the referees explained why the time had been added on?
Here’s a thought. How about we stop the game at 90 minutes and any extra time which would have been played is instead taken up by the referee answering questions from the stands?
Right, Gareth Baldwin, Chairman of Histon, you have three minutes added on time to ask why exactly the game was called off, starting from now.
Phil Crossley was brave in speaking after the game, but the subsequent war of words between Histon and Swansea is enough to make any referee shut his door and never want to come out, and all this with the game still to be replayed.
Weekly we get complaints about the standard of refereeing at our level and beyond, but it will only improve if the officials are given more protection and when they explain their decisions we accept it.
For too long the grassroots game has become a breeding ground for rule and law changes, perhaps this is our opportunity to experiment one stage further and encourage referees to speak out.
Former referee Graham Poll, who began his career in grassroots, said this week that fans berate players if they don’t perform every week, and yet referees are expected to give one hundred percent every match. The only way we’ll see decisions improve on the pitch is when we realise the game we love is not an exact science but an interpretation of a rule book through very human eyes.
Caroline Barker presents The BBC Non League Football Show
Every Monday from 9pm via www.bbc.co.uk/nonleague
Real Football, real fans.
If you’ve got a story email the team nonleague@bbc.co.uk
