Pic of the week 19/5/19
And so the season ends.
On arrival at Cheddar FC it soon became apparent that my role for the night was to reduce the average age and waistline of the officiating team.
I’ve never been a Fourth Official before and my extensive briefing on my appointment mainly centered around the use of the electronic board for subs and time keeping, and I was advised to arrive in plenty of time to familiarise myself with this magical bit of kit. However, it transpired that the board broke the night before and it looked like I would simply be a glorified ball boy, with little else to do than roll on a new ball when, inevitably, the one in use was fired high, wide and ugly into the Cheddar night.
And that was how it was, until after about 20 mins the ref missed an obvious stamp on a Huish player in their area. Player on the ground in pain, ball rolls to a Hutton attacker who scores to make it 1-0.
Cue the explosion from the Huish bench, so I don my blue UN Peackeeper beret and head over to calm them down.
Two minutes later, a crunching tackle on a Hutton defender has the other bench in high dudgeon and so the tone is set for the rest of my evening: scurrying and shuttling between two benches, calming & cajoling increasingly irate managers and subs. I did find some success when I pointed out that the ref couldn’t be biased as both sides were equally upset with him. Imagine, if you will, being a supply teacher looking after a class of angry year 11’s at one end of the corridor, and a class of belligerent year 9’s at the other.
As for the game, Jack’s best friend (the tattooed monster of Huish) was not playing and, to be fair, Huish were, on the whole, a good bunch. Hutton had one player sent off (x 2 yellow cards for dissent) but emerged as 1-0 winners.
I’d like to say football was the winner, but I’d probably be lying.
Nevertheless, and I can’t explain why, I rather enjoyed the experience.