Showing posts with label District Cup. Show all posts
Showing posts with label District Cup. Show all posts

Thursday, 25 October 2012

My name is Jonah

I'm a reasonably happy chappy bumbling through my late 40s rapidly advancing on becoming a grandad for the first time but occasionally I get knocked off my path and I find myself falling into a slight dip in my positive outlook.

Over the last few weeks I have attended two games to assess the referee for promotion and both have been abandoned. Last week I picked up a District Cup backword, turned up at the ground only for the away team not to show. On Sunday I picked up another backword, this time for a Sunday League Trophy game with a place in the Quarter Final at stake, but the home team haven't paid some fines and have been suspended for a minimum of 7 days meaning the game has been postponed.

So is it me or do I just have a convergence of unusual situations occurring?

The upside is that I was able to help out the local Junior Football League and they have offered me two games, 2 hours apart within 5 miles of each other, so at least I'm going to get some game time in ... well at least until tomorrow when the weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse and snow showers sweep in from the Arctic ...

Saturday, 5 May 2012

Adapt, adapt, adapt

The recent weather has played havoc with fixtures and at this time of the year this means the honour appointments, which many of us have worked hard to earn, have been displaced within the calendar.
So the begging, stealing and borrowing done to be able to take the game on, whether this is at home or at work (to ensure you can stay on the game) starts all over again. Personally I have benefited from a postponement meaning I have picked up a 4th Official on the Sunday League Cup Final.

The referee on the Trophy Final was also due to be on a County Final, so when this was postponed and the new date coincided with our Trophy Final, he had to give backword on our game. This meant the Senior Assistant stepped up to Referee and the 4th Official to Assistant Referee. I was asked to take over as 4th Official on that game but it coincided with my wife's birthday, so the Cup Final 4th Official switched to the Trophy Final and I picked up his role. So roll on May 17th.

I also nearly had to step in as an Assistant Referee on the District Cup Final on Thursday night. The 4th Official picked up a late injury and I was asked to go on standby in case one of the Assistants incurred an injury. As things transpired, the Assistants were both fine (even in Extra Time) but the Referee was held up in traffic after a major accident on the M1. For a few minutes (and it was just a few) I was looking at being on the line ... but the Referee arrived and did a good job of looking after a challenging final.

Last Sunday we also had to adapt as the wet weather meant we couldn't take the candidates outside. The rain and wind would have broken their concentration and devalued any learning they might acquire while we did the outdoor sessions. So we did a whole day inside and they did really well despite the limitations. When we do Day 2 on May 13, we will be outside for around 5 hours, so I'm expecting to have a lot of fun, especially on the mass confrontation practice!