OFFSET YOUR WORLD CUP TRAVEL WITH GREENERTRAVEL
Date: 7th October 2024
It’s easy to say that violence and abuse directed at match officials is unacceptable and must stop. Making it stop is another thing entirely. Two weekends ago, I was quoted (in their inimitable style) in the Sunday Mail on the subject of violence towards match officials in the youth leagues. Although the paper didn’t report one of my comments, I noted that violence against referees is, sadly, nothing new. Take this quotation from the Perthshire Advertiser of 4th March, 1889…
“There are always two umpires and one referee at each match. The duty of the umpires appears to be arguing with the referee, while he rushes about the field blowing a whistle. Sometimes he forgets to blow it, or else he blows it once too often, and then both teams, dropping their differences for a time, unite in kicking him round the field. I have seen a referee at the close of a match, led off the field delirious. They should be provided with a suit of brick-proof armour, as sometimes the spectators do not agree with them in some decisions, and others show their disapproval by heaving boulders, broken bottles, and slates at his unprotected body…”
In the course of researching a book on Scottish referees (from which the above quotation is taken), I found that one hundred or so years later things hadn’t improved…
“In May 1980, a referee was assaulted whilst officiating at an Edinburgh Amateur match and later that year, in November 1980, another member had his clothes stolen from the Jack Kane Centre … in November 1983, a member was assaulted in a Border Amateur match and the player concerned was given a 10-year ban. In another case, a player was suspended sine die for assaulting a member in a Midlothian Amateur match.”
“Although incidents in Amateur football have been fairly frequent throughout the Association’s history, such incidents began to spread to other grades of football. Of particular concern was the spread to the youngest youth leagues. In October 1983, a (referee) abandoned an Under 12 match due to crowd misbehaviour.”
“By January 1993, the (Association’s`) Council was so appalled that it wrote to Lothian and Borders Police and conveyed its concern about the number of assaults on Association members and the lack of action taken in many cases. Unfortunately, although there is often a prosecution in such cases now, occurrences of serious assault remain too common and is (sic) one of the greatest drawbacks to the recruitment and retention of referees today.”
Then there is the experience of our top-level referees. Here’s another quotation, about one of our most famous managers…
“The first time I recall meeting Jim McLean was in one of my earliest games as a referee. It was Dundee United vs St Johnstone and I sent off Davie Narey. He’d already been booked for a poor foul, then he got a second yellow when his arm stopped the ball in the box. I awarded a penalty and sent him off for deliberate handball. Wee Jim went ballistic. He had been watching from the corner stand but appeared on the track as if by magic, shouting and gesticulating. I went over, intending to tell him off, and ended up getting a barnstorming lecture from him. After the game, the referee’s dressing room door was kicked in, nearly coming off its hinges, followed by wee Jim who started to give me dogs’ abuse. Bear in mind, he’s never seen me before as I’ve only just arrived on the scene as a referee. I said, ‘you’re going to have a heart attack, you’ve turned purple, you need to calm down.’ I then told him ‘I can’t go back and change the decision. I’ll have a look at it on the TV and if it’s wrong I’ll tell you the next time I see you.’ As he was leaving, I said, ‘were you not a joiner? Perhaps you could put that door back on?’ That didn’t go down well!”
Further down the refereeing ladder it’s even more difficult…
“I remember doing a youth game between Blue Brazil and Letham. One of the people I’d been doing my training with was the son of a coach and was at the side of the pitch. I sent a guy off for giving the finger and telling a spectator to **** off. If it wasn’t for him, I would have got a lot more abuse than I actually got, because at least he was able to tell his dad – the coach – that my decision was correct. I have done Cup finals at Central Park in Kelty where you are there for five hours and if you make one dodgy call then it might have serious consequences.”
Of course, a very large part of the problem is that managers, players and fans simply don’t understand the laws of the game. Consider this quote from one of Scotland’s more famous managers…
“It was at a game between Celtic and St Mirren at Love Street in Paisley when I was the Assistant Manager at Celtic. Frank McGarvey was playing up front for St Mirren. For almost the entire 45 mins of the first half I berated the stand-side linesman, because every time St Mirren had a goal-kick, Frank was 10-15 yards offside. I was yelling, ‘Look at him, he’s offside, get your flag up’ but all I got was a dry look. I waited till half time, followed the ref and linesmen up the tunnel and demanded to see them. In their dressing room the stand-side linesman just stared at me. I was incensed, telling the officials: ‘that’s 45 ****ing minutes you’ve been letting them away with offsides. What’s the story?’ Calmly, the ref replied, ‘you cannae be offside from a goal kick.’ I went down on my knees in supplication; I was sweating and confessed, ‘I can’t believe I’ve given you such a torrid time.’ Considering the abuse I’d been giving them, they were very decent about it and we just got on with the game in the second half, but it taught me, as if I didn’t know, that players and managers really don’t know the rules as well as the referees and linesmen.”
The situation for female referees is arguably worse. One of the leading pioneers suffered misogynist abuse. A few months after making her debut as a senior referee, she ran the line in a match between Albion Rovers and Montrose. Albion Rovers’ manager, Peter Hetherston, was sent to the stand for his comments to her, but doubled down on them afterwards, making it clear that, in his view, there should be no place for women in football. Perhaps it was partly because his side had just lost (Montrose won 1-0), but the fact that he added that, “She should be at home making the tea or the dinner for her man who comes in after he has been to the football,” didn’t help his cause, even though he claimed this statement was merely a joke. The SFA didn’t see it as such and Hetherston faced a disrepute charge, but he resigned before the hearing took place.
In my view, the seemingly tacit acceptance of abuse by the refereeing fraternity is perhaps the biggest problem their profession faces. All the old guard have come through the fire and therefore, while they deplore it, it seems to be almost a badge of honour. For example, one of our country’s most famous referees told me that when it was suggested to him he might like to become a ref, he was aghast: “I was the world’s worst towards referees when I was a player,” he told me, but the advice was “you will enjoy the training and after getting through the first six months of abuse you’ll find you either like it or hate it.” Many other former refs told a similar story, especially those who had come through the jungle that was the Ayrshire Juniors.
The Sunday Mail has written about the possibility of referees going on strike. This has happened before and it’s not unlikely that it may happen again. in 2019, after referee John Beaton’s phone number was made public, a host of appalling threats to him and assaults on other players were brought to the fore, with The Sun newspaper reporting that a leading referee had said, “a strike won’t be far away.” This referee went on, “In recent weeks we’ve had clubs such as Rangers and Celtic coming out with comments after games because they didn’t get the result they wanted. Craig Levein at Hearts has also been very critical of us. All this is fine but the SFA should be stepping in and dealing with these clubs and individuals. We are made out to be the bad ones and I’ve had abuse from fans when out doing my shopping with my family.”
Referees at this time were getting not just the usual dogs’ abuse at games but also an increasing number of unpleasant threats away from the game, including death threats to some senior figures. Just writing that last sentence is quite chilling. This is football we are talking about, not The Godfather.
To illustrate the point, a friend, who was a top-level linesman, was doing a match involving Ayr Reserves at Somerset Park, with a crowd that you could just about count on the fingers of both hands. He disallowed a goal and this guy ran down the terracing to tell him, “I hope your wife and weans get killed in a car crash tonight.”
To return to the Sunday Mail, this is part of their article, highlighting this very real problem today.
“An email from Central Scotland League (CSFA) secretary Paul Crosbie to hundreds of clubs said: “There are teams who have players, officials and spectators who do not want to behave in the correct manner for children’s/ youth football.
“In the first week back of the new season which is only 10 days old across different age groups we have had multiple reports and complaints.
“[There were] 58 sending offs, [the] highest number ever for 1st week back; games abandoned; referees being verbally abused and physically threatened, referees being approached and challenged by parents in car parks.
“Spectators wanting to go fighting with coaches in front of minors; coaches and spectators making unacceptable comments to players on the park.
“Mass melees on [the] park with police and an ambulance being called; claim of sexual assault by one player to another on the pitch; alleged damage to changing rooms.
“Once all of the reports and complaints have been looked into and actioned, there may be further teams who may have their fixtures removed and membership revoked.
“The committee are unanimous, action is required so that the majority of teams can look forward to and turn up for their game of football on a Saturday in a safe, enjoyable environment whether it is development level football for children’s age groups or competitive football for the youth age groups.”
“The Scottish Football Association has now vowed to take action and tackle the problem at their next top level board meeting.”
The SFSA wholeheartedly supports the football authorities in this, but we do need to see effective action. Given the history of referee abuse outlined above, it’s not easy. However, here’s a possible approach. Back in the day, it was horrendously commonplace to hear black players being abused, even having bananas thrown at them. Racism is unacceptable in our game now, having been made so by a change in societal attitudes, led by Kick it Out, founded by the late, great Lord Ouseley. These attitudes filter down from the top. If it’s unacceptable to call someone a racist name in the Premiership it’s equally so at grassroots level. We need to see the same vigour applied to referee abuse, otherwise the problems of recruitment and retention will not go away – and fewer refs means fewer games, fewer kids coming through and Scottish football (potentially) continuing to see an even greater drop in standards. Is that what we want? Who will be refereeing’s Lord Ouseley?
Alastair Blair, Director of Operations, SFSA
Posted in: Latest News
Tags: Refereeing