High time a referee decided to give some stick back
Jonathan Moss’ alleged mocking of players makes for a refreshing change, writes James Corrigan
Is the worm turning, has the church mouse finally located its squeak, are Premier League referees at last answering back?
The sane among us will pray this is the case in the wake of the wonderful tale in Bournemouth’s Daily Echo about a couple of Cherries players claiming their feelings were wounded by Jonathan Moss giving them “sarky comments” during Sunday’s defeat at Bramall Lane. Dan Gosling, the toughtackling midfielder, was particularly mortified, bless him. “I thought he was a disgrace,” Gosling said. “The comments that he made, especially to me and one other player – talking about the relegation zone and ‘You’re still in the relegation zone’, ‘You’re having one’, ‘Your team’s having one’, this and that, and it was very, very disrespectful. He should really say sorry.”
Moss has thus far remained silent as active referees are always told to (until they retire and then you cannot shut them up), yet the Football Association disciplinarians should be applauded for not taking the matter any further, despite Bournemouth’s pathetic exhortations. Inevitably, the great moralists out there have already leapt to their pulpits to castigate Moss for being “unprofessional”. Rather that than being “unhuman”.
Be honest, how many of us would be able to handle the abuse the referees endure on a weekly basis? Most of us would spend so long pointing players to dressing rooms that we would develop RSI in our shoulders. But for some reason – that we all know comes from the top and involves not damaging the precious, till-ringing spectacle – the referees just suck it up, leaving those millionaires to come over all sensitive.
Gosling moans about Moss showing him “zero respect” but he should ask the 49-year-old how much he receives. The fact is, Moss and his colleagues dream of getting “zero” because at least that is not deep in the minus columns where respect for referees festers. Indeed, a “sarky comment” would be a rich compliment from their viewpoint. Both sets of players swear at them, both sets of fans swear at them – and that is just during the game. At the final whistle, the fun really starts, with a police guard off the pitch, before managers slate them and those interminable radio shows call out their every blemish in brutally personal, if not sinister, tones, with social media inevitably pitching in with its deafening decibels.
My favourite Twitter response to Gosling’s gripes came from Josh, a Sheffield United supporter. “I don’t get it,” @Monts94 posted. “Jon Moss literally gave them f------ everything.”
No, referees cannot win, they cannot even whinge – and I have wondered in columns before, who are these people? Have they no self-worth? I have concluded that there are self-doubting traffic wardens on medication who would not stand for it. Yet referees seemingly regard it as an occupational hazard, treating verbal assaults rather like a kindergarten teacher treats vomit over their cardigan. Comes with the job… scrape it off… on to the next squabble.
Except not all of them defer so obligingly. In the Sixties there was a referee who actually dared to swear back. A couple of players went to my father, who was a football journalist, to reveal their outrage. Apparently the pros would scream, “Oi, ref that wasn’t an effing foul,” and he would reply, “Yes, it effing was. Pipe down you effing idiot.” When the story was printed, the referee sued the newspaper and won. His professional pride had been dented.
Maybe it had, but he should have been hailed. He showed the courage to stick up for himself and if only the other refs had followed suit and started to hold up red cards the moment the air turned blue, then over the next five decades their species might not have evolved into a timid creature more terrorised than the red squirrel.
As it turned out, the video assistant referee was supposed to fix everything. You know, that old argument that the eye in the sky would remove the temptation to ridicule the arbiter’s human frailty. How did that work out?
Both sets of players swear at them, both sets of fans swear at them