RUNNING Columnist THE title LINE in CAN here BEAT HANK LESS TASK
AT a recent Championship game, featuring Millwall against Bolton Wanderers, one of the match officials was taken ill before the kick-off and another suffered an injury early into the match.
The stadium announcer asked if there was anyone qualified in attendance who could take over the role as referee’s assistant. Luckily, a supporter from Millwall stepped up to run the line. I can imagine the pressure on him must have been huge. It would probably come from his fellow home fans shouting for him to give decisions in their club’s favour, along with the opposing supporters berating him at every opportunity, accusing him of favouring his own team. The match ended as a draw, which was probably the ideal result in the circumstances.
In local football, getting someone to volunteer to be a linesman is a job in itself (I still can’t get used to calling them assistant ref- erees). These days I know even at county football level, it is against the rules to use a substitute player for the role.
I can recall my days as a manager in local football, where I would do a jig of joy if I saw a potential linesman arrive to watch the game before kick-off. Luckily, in the later years of my time in local football management, a chap named Rob Taylor, who I have got to know very well, called me one day volunteering me his services to run the line on a regular basis. I honestly couldn’t say “yes, please” quickly enough. To this day, he is still one of the best signings I ever made!
Going back to my days as a manager in Sunday football, it was common practice (and it probably still is) to have one of your nominated substitutes at this level run- ning the line. Nearly always the task was carried out reluctantly. Looking back now they were usually sulking because obviously they thought they should be in the line-up, after making the effort to get there.
One memorable incident I can clearly recall from those Sunday morning games featured our linesman who was in conflict with the referee. It went along the lines of our chap flagging for a corner, with the referee ignoring him. This seemed to happen on every occasion our lineman raised his flag; it could have been an offside decision, a free-kick or countless throw-in decisions, but whatever it was the referee, wasn’t interested. This led to our linesman throwing the flag to the floor, and gesturing to the referee to shove the flag somewhere the sun doesn’t shine! The referee responded by sending him off! He was then asked to leave the field, and was not even allowed to watch the rest of the game. He was punished later by the authorities, for foul and abusive language to an official and banned from all football for 30 days!
I attended the funeral of Ted Chandler recently, the father of my good friend Ricky. As I mentioned a few weeks back, Ricky and I played football alongside each other for several decades, starting back in the Seventies in schoolboy football.
Although it was a sombre occasion, it was lovely to see some old familiar faces that day. It was fitting, that in attendance there were four of us who were team-mates, from our junior school days, which obviously included Ricky, who back then travelled in Ted’s car regularly to our junior Bristol boys matches.
To be fair, apart from Ricky, the other three of us namely, Dave Mogg, Russell Bacon, and myself, resemble a tray of eggs in the photo!