FOR OFFICIALS, ABOUT OFFICIALS, BY OFFICIALS

August 2006

Table of Contents

1. Welcome
   - a message from the editor.
2. President's Report
   - from Jim Briggs.
3. Training Report
   - From Davie Parsons.
4. Operations Report
   - from Peter Thom.
5. Finance Report
   - from Charles Dean-Young.
6. Newsflash
   - from Roger Stangroom.
7. The Gool Ol' Days
   - loads-a-teams.
8. War Story #3
   - tales from the trenches.
9. Official's Checklist
   - pointers to keep in mind.
10. Why We Officiate
    - rambling thoughts.
11. Festival of Football
    - from a Head Coach
12. Picture Quiz
    - photo question
13. I Wanna Talk to the White-hat
    - handling a coach's conference.

WELCOME

Welcome to the August edition of your magazine, this time you will find more input from officials, which is what we want. "The more the merrier", let me have your views.

You may find some errors in this print, I am still finding my way around the publishing scene in regard to paragraphs, spacing etc etc. However, I hope you find it enjoyable reading.

The next edition will be out in time for Xmas so I will need more articles for that edition, so please keep them coming.

Colin Payne #3 - Editor

PRESIDENT'S REPORT

The future of BAFRA

Introduction

Six months into my term of office at President, this is an appropriate time to write about my vision for BAFRA's future. My views are based on discussions I've had with ordinary members at games and at meetings, as well as with my fellow directors.

Officiating - our core business

Every organisation is judged primarily by its core business. Our core business is putting officials on the field for games. The more we do that the better we are. At the moment we do that fairly well - we cover all BAFL games and the majority of YKL games with 4-man crews. As a bonus, we occasionally put out 5-man or larger crews, and we have also supplied officials to a number of junior and flag tournaments.
In an ideal world, we would put a seven-man crew, plus assessor, on every BAFL game, and perhaps a five-man crew on each youth and junior game. With 40 senior teams and 20 youth teams (and assuming that they all played every week, which is something the league might move towards), that would require (20x8) + (10x5) =210 officials each game day. Assuming that 70% of our members are available at any one time, it means we would need 300 members. That's not an unrealistic target - we had more than that in the 1980s.
So far this season, we have 71 members who have worked at least one game, which is encouraging (up from last season), but a long way short of the target. What can we do to increase our numbers? I think there are four key areas:

1. Phone a friend. Do you know anyone who is interested in football but isn't currently participating? Have you tried to persuade them to take up the stripes?
2. Ex-members. We've had quite a bit of success this year in luring back former members. Do you know any more out there who might be tempted?
3. Students. Each year, university teams turn away tens of students who express an interest in football, but for one reason or another don't make the team. How can we pick them up?
4. Jaded officials from other sports. Sunday morning soccer referees put up with far more abuse than we do. How can we persuade some of them of the advantages of switching sports?

I hope that our new Director of Recruitment will take the initiative in these areas.

Training - achieving quality of service

Having addressed our core business, what do we need to do to improve the quality of the officiating service that we provide? The obvious main task in this area is to train our members to be better officials.
We have already this year tackled the problem of rookie training by appointing four Training Support Officers, located around the country. Their job is to make sure that new members are guided through the induction training programme, get out on the field to work games, and ultimately become qualified officials. This seems to be working well.
Secondly, we have begun the implementation of the Elite Programme, aimed at taking the best officials and stretching them, both in ability and experience. This gives every official who wants to advance a route to the top, via big games in Britain, the EFAF panel for European tournaments, the IFAF panel for international tournaments, and the possibility of experience in NFLE.
Not every BAFRA member has the desire or ability to advance to this sort of level. We have to balance the needs of the people who do with those who don't. One of the nice things about BAFRA crews is that a rookie working their first game could be working alongside a Eurobowl, NFLE or World Cup official. Do you think Horace Ellison or Pierluigi Collina work regularly with rookies?
Training is not just about rules and mechanics. We also need to cover how to manage people and situations, and health and safety issues (largely common sense).
We need to make sure that we have training opportunities (events and materials) available for all levels of official, and provide encouragement and rewards for those who take advantage of it.

Keeping people in the loop

One of the features that I hope you've noticed about my presidency is that I am keen to let you the BAFRA member know what's going on and to ask for your input and ideas. I never forget that this is a member's organisation, and that if only a few people are running it, some of the best ideas might be lost. That doesn't mean that every idea will be implemented straightaway because we have to take manpower and finance into consideration, but we can build a wish list of plans for the future.
So far this year we have:

• restored the Selection Committee to life to increase the input into who should be selected for bowl games, etc.;
• reintroduced Flag Down and expanded both Newsflash and the BAFRA website;
• appointed more people to jobs involved in day-to-day operations; and
• in many cases appointed deputies who can take over when people are unavailable

At the end of the senior season, we will be sending out a questionnaire to all members seeking their views about the way the Association is run.
We have also had a look at our budget to see that we are spending increasing amounts on training and that we get good value for money for what we spend on administration.
There is one major thing that we still have to do to make BAFRA a better organisation: convert what is currently an association into a company limited by guarantee. This will provide us all with important protection against possible legal action. A consultation on what effect this should have on the way BAFRA is governed can be found elsewhere in this issue.
We are also doing more to improve our relationship (already pretty good) with the other BAFA organisations: BAFL, BYAFA, BSAFA, BAFCA and SGA. Together we are working on developing the whole sport. A recent initiative is to make contact with other officiating bodies, through Sports Officials UK. This will hopefully reap dividends for us.

Finally

Get involved! There are lots of ways of increasing your participation in BAFRA. If you can:

1. make yourself available for more games
2. persuade your friends to join
3. attend training events
4. read the rulebook, mechanics manual and other training materials regularly
5. volunteer to do a job on behalf of BAFRA
6. send in your ideas
7. give us feedback on what we do

Some questions about the governance of BAFRA

In the near future, we will be holding a referendum with the proposal that BAFRA ceases to be an association and becomes a company limited by guarantee. This will provide us all with important protection against possible legal action.
Since this requires a change to the constitution, we want to take the opportunity to revisit the existing constitution and see whether it is still fit for purpose.
My feeling is that it isn't. It was drawn up in the days when BAFRA had a National Council to make policy and to oversee the board of directors. It was changed when the association shrank and couldn't justify the cost of members' travel to Council meetings. Now, we are growing again, and we have new means (i.e. email and the internet) of communicating with each other. We need to react to changed circumstances more quickly. We need to cope with changes in the personal circumstances of members and especially directors.
To kick off, here are some questions to which we would like your views. Please send me an email (president@bafra.org) or phone me to discuss. Don't worry if you don't want to answer them all. We want the opinions of new members as well as old hands. The current constitution can be found at http://www.bafra.org/info/handbook/constitution.htm.

Questions

1. What is the right number of directors?
2. Should they be elected to particular positions, or should the Board decide who should do what?
3. Are the present positions appropriate? Are there any we don't need? Are there any new ones we do need?
4. Should the President of BAFRA automatically be the association's nominee as a BAFA director?
5. Should the election of directors be done at the AGM rather than by postal ballot?
6. Should the term of office for directors be 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or unlimited?
7. If the term of office is more than 1 year, should all the directors be up for election in the same year or staggered?
8. What mechanism should there be to get rid of incompetent directors?
9. Should people who have just signed up on the website be given full membership privileges?
10. At what stage in an official's development should they be granted full membership privileges?
11. Should officials who only work flag games (or only youth games) be eligible to be full members?
12. Should only members in the full member category be allowed to stand and vote for directors?
13. Should the Board be able to determine policy for BAFRA?
14. Do we need to have separate "chairman" and "chief executive" roles?
15. Under what circumstances should BAFRA accept or not accept BAFA policy as binding?

Executive Board meeting

The BAFRA Executive Board met on 8th July.

Among the items covered were the following.

1. Roger Stangroom was appointed as Deputy General Secretary.
2. Feedback on this year's convention was overwhelmingly positive. We plan to do something similar next year and Davie and Charlie have already started planning.
3. We reviewed our procedures for handling feedback from teams. We've had a poor response to coaches cards this season and will encourage teams to submit more.
4. Davie was complimented on his pilot scheme for distributing coaches cards to officials. This will now become a permanent mechanism. Assessment reports will be sent out the same way.
5. Charlie has taken over responsibility for the flag football working party, and also for setting up a child protection policy. Davie is taking over responsibility for health and safety and risk assessment.
6. Jim reported on changes to the BAFA registration process. It should only require minor changes to our existing processes, at least in the short term.
7. Our financial position is as expected.
8. Membership fees for 2006-2007 were agreed. Full members will pay £40 (£35 before 1st November). Other fees remain unchanged.
9. Regulations covering payment of expenses to directors and officers were agreed.
10. Roger reported on upgrades to the website and mailing lists.
11. Russell Newton, Martin Cockerill and Chris Jarvis were confirmed as new Training Support Officers (in addition to Keith Alldritt).
12. A number of appointments were made or proposed as deputies to the directors and officers.

For full details see the minutes which are available in the Members area of the website.

Jim Briggs #31

DIRECTOR OF TRAINING REPORT

2006 Convention

Feed back following the 2006 Convention and Training Weekend has been very positive. The questionnaire issued via Newsflash was not a great success as only around 8 forms were returned, however the comments made were very constructive with plenty of suggestions offered for next years event. I also received about 10 calls and a similar amount of emails from members expressing their views and the general consensus again was of a positive nature.

So what did the people say? Well let's do the "Likes" first:

• Guest Speaker, Jamie Grant received plaudits from almost everyone
• Subsidised Hotel Room was a big benefit and persuaded quite a few members to attend
• Meeting old and new members was commented on a lot
• Variety of Speakers and Topics
• Presentation formats, especially game film

The dislikes:

• The AGM (This was the only common negative aspect of the weekend. Everyone felt it was a hard slog at the end of a long day at the Convention)

Suggestions for next Year:

• Arrange a social event for the evening
• Give a presentation on rule changes
• Subsidise Hotel Rooms again
• Bring over a guest Speaker again
• Arrange Convention around College Bowl again if possible
• More break-out sessions covering specific positions and mechanics

Keep your eye on Newsflash over the coming months as I start working towards next year's event and hopefully we can make it another success

New Recruits

In my annual report to the membership I highlighted the need to bring together a Team dedicated to managing new recruits and that I would concentrate my efforts in achieving this goal. The development of the Training Support Team has moved forward considerably over the last 6 months as you will have seen via my reports in Newsflash. The team are doing a great job and their efforts are reaping many rewards for BAFRA. We are now getting new officials out on the field a lot quicker which means we can cover more games. We are also managing their training a lot more professionally and provide plenty of support as they go through the Induction Training Programme.

Notwithstanding the success of the above, we still have a lot more work to do. My next task will be to develop better lines of communication between myself, the Training Support Officers and the Recruits. I will also look at internal communications to ensure we provide the General Secretary and the Director of Operation with clear information on new members and their individual progress both on and off the field.

Annual Exam

Response to the Annual Exam this year was excellent. The return to an older format was generally was well received by everyone. As such I would suggest we will probably continue with the same True or False system again next year. The Exam Committee do a great job and always manage to generate healthy debate with a few of the questions they set and their subsequent answers and interpretations of the rules.

Coaches Cards

The initial trial period of issuing the cards by email is now over and the feedback I have received has been very good. The most common comment has been that's its better to see the card as soon as possible following the game while it is still fresh in the mind rather than a year later at the Convention. As such I will continue to send the out by email

Publications

I now have a good supply of all our publications and I provide a stock report to the Executive Board every 3 months. Stock levels will now be maintained to ensure we can meet the demands of any future recruitment programme. I also have plenty of Coaches Cards so let me know if you need another batch.

I have been asked by a few members if it is possible to buy replacement books. Most requests have been made for Mechanics Manuals. I will raise this subject at the next Board meeting as I don't have any guidelines on what to charge, if anything. An update on this topic will appear in Newsflash.

Assessments

Future Assessments will now be issued electronically. Either scanned or as a Microsoft Word file. For those members who can't access email, don't worry, Ill send them out by post.

Recent Assessments have generated lots of comments and some concerns as to the content and quality of the reports provided. Questions have also been asked as to the competency of the Assessor when covering a 6 or 7 man crew. The criticisms have all been very constructive and everyone acknowledged the commitment and efforts made by those members who have only just started to assess. Many have taken up the mantle following the Break-out session presented by Phil Cottier at the Convention.

A well as continuing to progress the Training Support Group over the coming months I will also be developing additional support for Assessors. This will include enhancing the existing guidance notes currently available on the website and providing some examples of completed assessments which demonstrate the content and structure required.

Davie Parsons - Director of Training

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS REPORT TO 30th JUNE 2006

BYAFA

The youth kitted schedule came out in two parts with the Southern Conference confirmed in April and the Scottish Conference in May.
This year most of the southern teams made an effort to play their games on the same weekend as their senior teams allowing us to cover their games as double headers, this together with the increase in membership means that we can cover all games, a vast increase on last year.
In Scotland only one team is affiliated to a senior team and no double headers are scheduled, there is still a lack of members in the north but due to Edinburgh pulling out of the BAFL we will be able to cover 4 of 9 games, again a vast improvement.
Last year we were able to cover a total of 11 games throughout the country (7 regular season games and 4 post season games), this season we will cover 25 of 30 regular season games and all playoffs
More than 50 different BAFRA officials will have officiated at one or more youth games by the end of the season.
We will also have provided officials for 8 Flag/5on5 football tournaments, 6 of these will be BYAFA tournaments and 2 NFLE events.

BCAFL

Very little to report other than the cancellation on the international tournament planned for July/August.

BAFL

Eight friendly games were covered by BAFRA prior to the season kicking off on April 30th; Edinburgh failed to get off the mark so only 36 teams started the season.

Other than Edinburgh being a non starter, April and May passed without serious scheduling problems, two games were postponed and rescheduled later in the season, any problems were minor and quickly sorted out and we were able to get a lot of our new recruits on to the field.

Things were not so easy in June however when there seemed to be one problem after another, injured officials, teams changing schedules, kick off times changed and games cancelled but the biggest problem was caused by members changing their availability and pulling out of games, 20 people pulled out of 41 games after the assignments had been published, I'm sure this was not entirely due to the World Cup but thank goodness it's only every 4 years.

Thank you to all those who were prepared to move games to help out.

Peter Thom - Director

FINANCE REPORT

Currently Bafra is in a good financial position, we have approximately £12,000 in the bank and its income and expenditure are level. Other than Bowl Games which cost us in the region pf £1000, we have no major expenditure planned.

Income is higher than budgeted as we are covering more games than planned, travel expenses are not as high as expected either, however, there are a few bad weeks to come.

We had budgeted for a loss of £2000 for the year, but I am expecting to be slightly better than that and we are already planning for next year's convention.

I am looking to flag football to include the officials who officiate only at these games under the Bafra umbrella, and also creating a child protection policy, so if anyone who has any ideas or expertise in these matters could contact me then it would be greatly appreciated.

Overall I am very happy with the state of Bafra's finances.

Charles Dean-Young Director

NEWSFLASH

Have you noticed that whenever one of the "older" generations writes an article, they always start by saying something along the lines of "it was different in my day"? Well, I'm going to be no different!

When I started in BAFRA in the early nineties, crew sizes were nearly always 5-man and you were not guaranteed a game every week. This had a knock-on effect in that Newsflash was sent to all members only during the active season. It was sent to just Referees at other times and only if there was something vital to say. This was because whilst it was created on a computer, it was then printed, put into an envelope which had to be addressed, stamped, and the whole kit and caboodle posted.

Any game-day reports, articles, etc had to be sent via the post to arrive in time for Monday evening to enable the editor to prepare the Newsflash to issue Tuesday so that the membership received it before the weekend. You may remember that the game-day stuff had to be telephoned in to one of the co-ordinators Sunday evening in addition to confirming in writing to enable Newsflash to be prepared on time.

Since I took over the editorship of Newsflash, I have been able to drag it into the 21st century and it is now issued by email to all but a couple of members who do not have access to email.

For me, preparation of next week's Newsflash begins as soon as this week's has been issued (and sometimes even before that), although most of the preparatory work is done on Saturday as that is when I have the most time.

I prepare the web version first (locally on my PC), usually starting with last week's file and taking out all the articles, removing the data from the ejections and game management grids, changing the dates (the more astute of you will have noticed when I occasionally forget), and updating Roger's Rhetoric.

Speaking of which, how many of you remember Katrina 'T' Hutchinson? It was she who gave it that name and it has stuck! As I receive articles throughout the week I add them to the web version - this is usually a copy and paste exercise, but quite a number of articles need their grammar and spelling checked, and the occasional one needs to be translated! Game-day reports which are completed on-line, are automatically emailed to each of the Directors and to the Newsflash email (newsflash@bafra.org), and so are received within minutes of your pressing the send button.

As you know, I have a deadline of 8:00 pm on Monday and some people (who will remain nameless) seem to treat this as a challenge and send me articles at 19:59:59 or ring me up to request an extension. It would make my life so much easier if you could send me anything for Newsflash as soon as you have it - preferably before the weekend. I do have a full-time job and I need to get up early and so I do not want to sit at my computer all night preparing Newsflash. If I get late inclusions, it will mean that I will not finish Newsflash until the next night. Whilst this is not a major problem as it is going out via email and should be received before the weekend (which after all is the intention), I do actually attempt to have a life outside work and BAFRA.

Once everything has been put into the HTML version, I prepare the Word version. Once again I start with the previous week's file and delete all the articles - this way I keep items such as the Calendar on a week-by-week basis. The articles are then copied from the HTML version (I use Mozilla Firefox as it seems to copy better than IE) using copy and paste. The paragraphs are then moved around to make them fit the page and then the PDF version is created.

At this point I have Newsflash ready for distribution via email and similarly to update the web site.

All I have to do now is send it. With the additional membership created from the very successful recruitment drive, I have discovered a minor problem with the newsflash@bafra.org email. It will only let me send 100 emails at a time - I now have 147 names on the distribution list. After several false-starts, I now know that this limit is 100 per hour (to stop spamming), and so I have split the mailing list into two of about 75 each and send the first one immediately and go and watch TV for an hour and send the rest later. I am experimenting with an on-line mailing list, but more of that another time.

As with all things done on a voluntary (or even professional) basis, a newsletter is only as good as the articles published in it. Whilst I do browse the web, visit bulletin boards, read Referee magazine, and the newspapers, I rarely come across anything worth mentioning. This is where you guys come in. Anyone prepared to send me tit-bits of information, gossip, and faux-pas from last week's game, anything - I'll print it unless it is rude or defamatory. What about a joke? Someone once described Newsflash as "about BAFRA members, by BAFRA members, for BAFRA members".

Roger Stangroom Newsflash Editor

THE GOOD OLD DAYS???

Following on from Rogers' comment about it being different in my days "it was". I cannot say it was better or worse, but to give you an idea of what it was like to schedule officials to games without the use of a computer (perhaps an Amstrad 64 with one single floppy drive) or without having the rating system that we now have at our disposal, I have listed on the following pages most of the teams that were registered in 1986.

Nearly 150 Senior teams and 75 Junior teams played from early in the year till late winter, however, on occasions we were able to supply 4 man crews to about 80 games on a Sunday, there were no fixed crews and referees did not have to contact members of the crew selected, I did this by phone.

Some of the crews selected themselves, as we had many American servicemen who travelled together from a base, this saved me some trouble in one way, but also gave me problems when there was an alert at 02.00 on the morning of a game, I received many a furtive phone call at this sort of time informing me that we had suddenly lost a referee, it was then my job to persuade an Umpire or Headline to take his place, this was reasonably easy with our friends from across the pond as they were all more experienced than we were and they enjoyed the challenge, I can remember on more than one occasion when an official turned up for a game with his wife still stitching on the white braid to a hastily obtained black baseball cap.

Later we had Area co-ordinators and I was able to share the workload by giving each of these members a number of games to obtain officials for, according the number of crews they were able to muster, and then we had fixed crews and they were allocated games according to their ability and it was the Referees task to replace officials who were unavailable.

I am sure that I may have missed some teams and others changed their names, but can you imagine what would happen if all of these teams remained in existence, we could have run 2 man crews with "club" judges and linesman, similar to what they do in Sunday soccer, can you imagine how much fun that would have been with our offside and encroachment rules, and how long would the games have lasted, and I thought 3 hours was too long. "Bring back the good old days", what do you say?

Adult Teams 1986

Junior Teams

Colin Payne aka #3

WAR STORY #3

Back in the 80's I was a member of the RAF stationed at Valley on Anglesey. I was introduced by 2 of my sergeants to the local team, the Bangor Knights, the sergeants were already players and on the first evening of practice I was introduced to the team as the "New Linebacker", and promptly given a set of pads and a helmet and told to stand over there, this I did.

I was playing left hand middle but had no previous playing experience, so I was nervous to start with, the ball was snapped and the running play that the Offense was playing started. The running back being a slim Jim racing snake, and me being a larger built chap thought he could dodge round me, sadly I lunged for him, and on my very first play in a brand new team got called for face-masking my own running back! Suffice to say he was not happy, but it was the start of a few adventures in my only playing season, before injury and a very angry admin sergeant, forced me back into the spectators.

During the season Bangor were playing a team based in Toxteth and I went along to watch as I had not yet received my papers to allow me to play. I was dressed in my usual jeans, tee-shirt and denim jacket covered in Iron Maiden badges, me being a bit of a rocker at heart. The game was uneventful, but afterwards in the bar I looked out of the window and noticed two local hooligans in the boot of our coach. I gave an almighty yell of "oi" and proceeded to chase the ruffians! Thankfully I never caught them but I did manage to get lost in Toxteth and this was not many years after the riots. The local police were helpful, once they had established that I was not a suspect in a theft, they were dubious about my identity until I showed them my RAF id card, and they drove me back to the stadium, where I was greeted on the coach to a rousing chorus of the Starsky and Hutch theme.

Oh, the joys of football!

Steve Clibbens # 524

OFFICIAL'S CHECKLIST

Below are some pointers to keep in mind when officiating at any level. All officials should have a good working knowledge of the rules and mechanics. In addition to this you will find your games more enjoyable by remembering these points:

BE COMPETITIVE - the players give maximum effort, so should you. Tell yourself: "I'm not going to let this game get away from me. I am better than that." You are hired to make the calls that control the game - Make Them!

HAVE YOU HEAD ON RIGHT - Don't think your striped shirt grants you immunity from having to take a little criticism. It's part of the officiating. Plan on it. Successful officials know how much to take. Ask one when you get the chance.

DON'T BE A TOUGH GUY - If a coach is on your back but not enough to warrant a penalty, then stay away from him (or her). This is especially true during time-outs. Standing near an unhappy coach, just to "show him", will only lead to further tensions. Some officials develop irritating characteristics. Don't be one of them.

GET INTO THE FLOW OF THE GAME - Each game is different. Good officials can feel the difference. Concentrate on the reactions of the players. Take note if the tempo of the game changes. A ragged game calls for a different style of officiating from a smooth one.

DON'T BARK - If you don't like to be shouted at, don't shout at someone else. Be firm with a normal relaxed voice. This technique will do wonders in helping you reduce the pressure. Shouting indicates a loss of control - not only of one's self, but also of the game.

SHOW CONFIDENCE - cockiness has absolutely no place in officiating. You want to exude confidence. Your presence should command respect from the participiants. As in any walk of life, appearance, manner and voice determine how you are accepted. Try to present the proper image.

FORGET THE FANS - As a group, fans usually exhibit three characteristics; ignorance of the rules, highly emotional partisanship and delight in antagonising the officials. Accepting this fact will help you ignore the fans, unless they interrupt the game or stand in the way of you doing your job.

ANSWER REASONABLE QUESTIONS - Treat coaches and players in a courteous way. If they ask a question reasonably, answer them in a polite way. If they get your ear by saying "Hey, ref I want to ask you something", and then start telling you off, interrupt and remind them of the reason for the discussion. Be firm, but relaxed.

CHOOSE YOUR WORDS WISELY - don't obviously threaten a coach or player; this will only put them on the defensive. More importantly, you will have placed yourself on the spot. If you feel a situation is serious enough to warrant a threat, then it is serious enough to penalise without invoking a threat. Obviously some things you say will be a form of threat, but using the proper words can make it subtle.

STAY COOL - Your purpose is to establish a calm environment for the game. Nervous or edgy officials are easily spotted by fans, coaches and players alike. Avidly chewing gum, pacing around or displaying a wide range of emotions prior to or during a game will serve to make you seem vulnerable to the pressure.

Reprinted with written permission from Referee magazine.
For subscription information contact Referee magazine, PO Box 161, Franksville, Wis. 53216; phone 262/632-8855; e-mail: referee@referee.com.

WHY WE OFFICIATE

Why?

• It's standing on the field listening to the National Anthem with your eyes closed and your hat over your heart, thanking God for your life and your country.
• It's walking onto the field and seeing the relieved look on the face of a coach that knows he's got a great crew tonight.
• It's the long drive to the game reviewing every detail of rules and mechanics and yet having time for a joke or two.
• It's walking around the school or stadium looking for your locker room because the AD forgot to have someone meet you.
• It's every story that begins with, "remember when..."
• It's the genuine look of concern on your crew mates faces when one of your brothers has fallen, and the round of laughter shortly thereafter when it's obvious he's alright.
• It's officiating a game shortly before and after your father dies because he taught you what honour is and to always do your duty.
• It's sitting silently at the an association meeting listening to others figure out a complicated ruling and then having them turn to you and ask, "is that right?"
• It's leaving your family for a 3-day clinic, and your wife supporting you in that decision and your dream, because she understands that if "it's not good for me, and then it's not good for us."
• It's bringing an extra pair of socks along just in case somebody forgets theirs.
• It's meeting someone and finding out he's an official and immediately becoming friends because of that fact.
• It's working through the sore muscles, bad knees and the smell of "Ben-Gay."
• It's lost job wages, small game fees, and that smile on your face when someone says, "You're just doing this for the money."
• It's the feel of your heart pounding before the coin toss as you reach into your pocket for the coin that isn't there.
• It's finishing a 3rd grade game and having a 9 year old run up to you and sincerely say, "Thank you, Mr. Official."
• It's hearing that a coach was putting you down behind your back, and that another official defended you by saying "he's the best official in the state."
• It has to "buy the first round" because you're the first one to get dirt on your knickers during the game.
• It's that "one play" that happened years ago that your crew keeps talking about. You all know the one.
• It's the 8 x 8 foot dressing room they give you with a shower head that barely works.
• It's leading by the example of sportsmanship, and hoping some of that will rub off on players, coaches and other officials.
• It knows that no matter what happens during the game, you'll get it right.
• It also knows that the greatest sign of wisdom is realizing that you don't know everything.
• It's Snickers bars, beef jerky and sodas made from fermented grains.
• Its rule books, discussion boards, countless e-mails and good friends whose faces you have yet to see.
• It's striving to be both a scholar of the rules, and a philosopher of the spirit of the game.
• It's being perfect the first day and working to improve everyday thereafter.
• It's knowing that you're a part of a tradition of honourable men, names of whom are mostly forgotten or weren't really known to begin with. But who still did their thankless jobs for the love of the game, and because it was the right thing to-do.
• It's all these things, and many, many more I'm sure, that keep all of us coming back for more, year after year, and wondering why . But then you step on the field again,...... take a deep breath ......and ask yourself, "where would I rather be than right here right now?"

Roger Stangroom #180

FESTIVAL OF FOOTBALL

The following e-mail was received shortly after the Festival of Football:

Firstly I will introduce myself, my name is Ian and I am the HC of the Bolton Braves Junior kitted team, Secondly I would just like to say thank-you for the officials who refereed the kitted games at the Festival of Football. Without doubt I have to say that they were the best crew that I have come across in my playing and coaching career.

It was my lads first taste of kitted football and I do not believe I could have gotten a better set of officials had I gone to the US to personally recruit some. Even before the game the head referee came over to speak to the lads and advised them of the basic penalties that they needed to be aware of.

During the game the officials were fantastic, they did what I believe you should do at youth level, they "let the players play". That is not to say that they deliberately turned a blind eye to penalties because they did not, every "flagable" infringement was flagged, however for the first time ever in my time involved in football I cannot remember a single occurrence where I disagreed with a decision ( even though quite a few went against my team ).

Finally after the games the officials came over to the lads and spoke to them like human beings (thus proving refs are human after all), in fact the head official gave words of encouragement to the players after the games were over which I thought was a really nice touch.

Anyway I'm in danger of going on and on so I will stop now; I will finish by once again thanking BAFRA and personally the officials who really proved that they were a "credit to the game "on Sunday.

Ian Kay - Head Coach - Bolton Braves

The officials for these games were Martin Cockerill and his daughter Alisha, take a bow please. It is not too often that officials receive praise like this.

PICTURE QUIZ

Other than those "posing" in the above photo, can anyone tell me who the officials are and where it was taken and what teams played.

All I will tell you is that it "WAS" after a game.

A WANNA TALK TO THE WHITE-HAT

OK then, here's the scene - a member of the crew has made some call that the sideline don't like and they are all jumping up and down and yelling about it. "I wanna talk to the white hat!" screams the bouncing Coach. Sound familiar? Of course it does, happens to us all a few times a season. But how are you and your crew going to deal with it? You may well have touched on the subject in the pre-game by talking about how the wingmen are going to bombard their Coach with information (penalty details, player numbers, game time, etc) and build up a rapport / working relationship with the sideline. Good signals from the crew plus good communication from a wingman may prevent the bouncing Coach in the first place. Here are a couple of examples,

A punt is/isn't touched and K seemingly recover.
"Coach, did you see the covering official give the tipped signal?"

An apparent DPI isn't called.
"Coach, did you see the covering official give the uncatchable signal?"

But assuming that the best efforts of our wingman are in vain and the Coach continues to bounce and demand to talk to the Referee, then our wingman has no option but to say "Call a timeout then Coach....". At this point the Coach has a final chance to decide just how upset he really is and whether he wishes to burn a Timeout. If he does call the Timeout, then the wing official should come into field and inform the Referee of the reason for the Timeout. This gives the Referee a few seconds to get his mind into gear as he walks over to the Sideline. He should be thinking about six key conflict control items.

Item 1 - Home field advantage.

The Coach is ready and waiting for you to come over to the Sideline so he can lay into you supported by his Assistants and backed up by his players. Don't step into the Lions Den, instead pull his teeth by inviting the Coach out onto the field to join you (I usually say something like "Coach, please step into my office" from about 5 yds away). The act of inviting him onto the field is likely to be a surprise that may stop the rant he is about to begin. Turning your back to him so he has to follow you onto the field means he is reacting to your commands instead of vice versa, plus he won't want to waste his rant by talking to the back of your head. I usually stop between the numbers and the hashes and a little way up or down the field to keep away from the player huddles. The time it takes for him to follow you back out onto the field can also slow down his rant and put him on the back foot. Psychologically, the sideline is Home Turf for the Coach.
Having him leave his comfort zone and walk into yours gives you a slight advantage. Without realising it, he is now a guest in your Home and his behaviour can change slightly to reflect that.
If any of his players or assistants try to accompany him onto YOUR turf, ensure you have none of it. Before they have a chance to start in on you mob handed, simply remind the Head Coach that this is a Head Coaches conference and ask him who is the Head Coach. Every time bar none that I have used this tactic, he has sent everyone else back to the Sideline straight away. I have no qualms about being quite firm/rude with assistants/players/team managers, as I want to talk to the Organ Grinder not one of his monkeys. A final bonus of being out on the Field ensures that the sideline folks cannot hear what the Referee is saying and thus cannot start yelling and arguing in the middle of his discussions with the Head Coach.

Item 2 - Don't be alone.

The Lone Ranger had Tonto, Batman had Robin. It is the duty of the rest of the crew to ensure that one of their number (usually the wing official from that sideline, but the crew may decide to have the most experienced official) is with the Referee during the conference. Why? Two reasons. First and simplest, to be a witness to what is said. Second and more subtle, if the Head Coach is outnumbered it puts him at a slight disadvantage, remember only 10 seconds ago, he was expecting to outnumber you by 40 to 1.

Item 3 - Stance and Posture.

The conventional way to argue is toe to toe, that is how they do it in Baseball. The Umpires and Coaches get in each others faces and really go for it. It is a longstanding Baseball tradition. I recommend you try a different approach. Stand next to the Coach, ie. Alongside him, so he is having to talk sideways to you. It is hard to talk to someone like this and almost impossible to yell at them when they are stood next to you. He may try and move around to get face to face, just keep moving so you are alongside him again.
When you do eventually give him your answer, ensure that you use no big arm movements or gestures; the best way is to have your hands behind your back. That shows a total lack of hostility from your side.

Item 4 - Silence is a virtue.

As the Coach starts into his argument, keep quiet, don't say a word, just listen and keep eye contact and appear interested in what he has to say. It will soon dawn on him that you are not arguing back, simply wait until he stops talking. Not saying anything at all is quite a good technique to defuse a conflict situation.
It goes without saying that Robin / Tonto will keep silent unless you ask him to contribute.

Item 5 - Softly, Softly.

After he has exhausted his rant, give him your reply. Keep it short and to the point. The aim is to finish this conference quickly. Talk very softly, so that he (and the other official) can only just hear you. It should help to keep him from interrupting you as the slightest word from him will drown you out and make it impossible to hear what you are saying.

Item 6 - Takes two to Tango.

An argument takes two people. You as Referee should go into the conference with your mind firmly set on having a friendly chat and not an argument. Try to keep your cool at all times. Don't let his heated approach to the conference drag you into copying him. You know that you are in a position of power and at the end of the day you are going to win the argument. The Coach knows this too, however there is no need to rub his nose in it. At the end of the day, your position of authority mean that you have the last word, but you don't actually need to say it...

So to summarise - you could let the Coach choose the time, the place, the participants, and the conduct of the argument and then be summoned to attend it.

Or you can use these simple techniques to disarm and defuse the situation and be in control yourself. Give them a try; they might just help you out.

Steve Tonkinson #99