Referee’s answers to ‘know alls’

IF you watched the final of the African Cup of Nations you may have wondered why the South African referee was offering his note pad and pencils, and probably his whistle, to a player.

The player was obviously one of those players who referees call a ‘Know All’.

Without doubt he will have been telling the referee what he should do or not do throughout the match.

I can assure you that there are plenty of Know All’s among players, at every level of the game.

This won’t have been the first time a referee, fed up with the constant criticism has offered to hand over the handling on the match.

Different referees will handle it in different ways, I remember one well-known local referee fed up with the constant carping from a player said, ‘look, there’s only one referee at this game’, to which the player replied.

‘One would be nice’. Other referees have not been as polite.

After a local Reading League game, the referee on another match, related to me in the referees changing room, his reaction to the constant bickering of such a player.

‘I told him he was like a cockney sparrow’, and when he asked me what I meant by that, I said, “you are all chirrup and sh..”.

Not perhaps the language you might expect from a referee but these players can become very exasperating when you have to listen to it all match long.

There are also players known as parrots or rabbits, because they rabbit on all match, then there are the out and out moaners.

There was one local centre forward who made referees hate being appointed to his club because they knew they were going to get one long dirge of complaints.

A football league referee once told me in the days before the Premier League, that one of one of England’s most revered centre forwards, moaned throughout the match.

When the FA relaxed it’s shackles on women’s football, I refereed in the South West Woman’s League.

The centre forward and captain of Plymouth Argyle Ladies, cleverly badgered me the whole match long .

After every decision against her team she would ask, ‘what was that for?’ and if there was a strong tackle by an opponent, it would be ’why wasn’t that a foul?’

Some suggested I should have cautioned her for dissent, but what would I have put on the report form, ‘I cautioned her for asking questions’?