Kick Off

Arrived at the ground to find that someone had pulled both sets of goal posts out of the ground using something with big tyres (tractor suspected!). So we headed to a new venue.

The game kicked off and it was around 20 minutes before I had to give a free kick. The field had few markings as the grass had recently been cut, so we used small training discs to help the club assistants decide if the ball was in/out of play.

The game went ok with just 3 serious challenges to decisions I made. I had a little chuckle as all the old lines were trotted out ... two sides in the game, he's in his back, never touched him referee ... I really only had one occasion where I would have considered a caution if this was a competitive game. Even then, I probably would have done what I did tonight, which was talk to the player about his actions. I didn't get an apology and there was no handshake from that player at the end of the game, but plenty of others were grateful for my presence.

The game finished 2-0 to the visitors after they scored a goal either side of half time. I think I only gave about 8-10 free kicks in the whole of the game and 3 of them were for offside decisions. The players complained I was "late" on my whistle on the offsides and weren't interested in my assurances that I had to wait for the offending player to play the ball.

My heart rate monitor failed near the end of he first half and had to be reset at half time. It says that I burned 668 calories in the second half, with an average hr of 76% and a max of 89%. Bearing mind that I usually work about 10% harder in the first half and leave the monitor running at half time. I'm guessing that I burned about 1400 calories in total from kick off to final whistle, which isn't too bad. Also despite the pace being slightly higher than I am used to, I hardly felt any fatigue at all.

One more training session, then it's course time!