Competitive players wanting u-little calls
The league I'm reffing in only runs one night a week, on a weeknight, indoors; and since there's only two fields in play in, that means the league can only go through eight games a night - you can do the math about how many bye weeks a team will get, when there's twenty four of them (small hint, eight teams will not be playing in any given week). Some of these are in the "Intermediate-B" bracket, but last week, those teams had the week off, and every game was in the "Compettive" bracket. It's amazing that teams that have such good players want such lame calls. Biggest whine of the night was about throw-ins. As mentioned countless times before, throw-ins are merely a method of putting the ball into play, and frankly, unless they're doing an overhear bomb (like you see keepers do during the run of play), it isn't necessary to stop the throw; in my last high school game, the National referee in the middle went one step further, saying he didn't want any foul throw calls - he didn't care if the feet were over the line, or anything. Why? Because we have better things to watch out for - it was egregious enough, he'd be in a better position than us, anyway - but overall, it's a pointless stoppage. Indoor, with only one referee, it's much the same - I want to maximize the number of players in my vision, while also being close enough to the play to catch the subtleties - watching for foul throws is a waste of everybodies time.
Apparently this is the new vogue phrase for certain women, beacuse I heard it from two different women on two different teams, both in a whiny tone: "That's not a throw-in." Now repeat at least half-a-dozen times. I learned over the last two years working here, that it's just not worth it to argue these, but to ignore the comments and use my verbal capital for bigger things, like....
Why, or why, don't players understand handling calls? One of the flaws with this league is that they don't hand out rules books. There are some of the house rules available on its web site - but, heck even affiliated games, do not prepared the players (or coaches!) by giving them a copy of the Laws/Rules that they'll be playing by. Ball bounces around a crowd and goes into a player, someone whines for a handball; ball is kicked two feet into another player's arm, someone whines for a handball; someone keeps his arms flat on his sides, but a defelction sends it into that arm, someone whines for a handball. The later actually resulted in a goal - guess what, advantage doesn't play into it.
"But Ref, it went right to his feet!"
"So?"
I used to use the 2002 US-Germany World Cup game where Hugh Dallas declined to whistle a foul, even though it prevented the US from tying up the game. He decided it wasn't deliberate, and therefor no foul. But people's memories are fickle, and while I hold that image dear as a referee (not so much as a fan of the US National Team!), other players forget. I haven't found anything to replace it, and probably won't for some time (it was a gift for the time it was in people's memories).
So a goal comes off of the no-handling call. They appear (before the goal), I say clearly that I don't believe it's a foul (before the goal), and once the goal is scored comes the real moaning and crying. The guy kept is hands firmly on his sides - it is clear he was deliberly avoiding contact, and since in order to make the call, there must be deliberate contact, I decide no foul. So, in the process of doing my job, I now endure repeated insults (not directly, they're not that stupid - or is it they just don't have the balls?), including, "Play illegal - the ref's not calling anything." Nope, just not calling things the way you want it - the way where I make up the rules to fit your shortcomings.