Yourkshire Cup 2009

Such a shame that this was the last Yorkshire Cup, the woman who runs it is retiring this time and no-one's willing to take over :(

Friday:
This was a case of recognising a couple of people, having names come back to me, and apologising to Tony for waking him up on his holiday in California at 8 in the morning. Running on the line is pretty much always the same no matter what age group you do, there was under-12s up to under-16s there, and to say the tournament is known for foreign teams it was a bit poor, there was Bielsko Biała U-13s from Poland (losing finalists) and Sanskriti School U-15s from India (didn't score a single goal and conceded 39 in 5 games). But basically running the line is simply staying in line with the back defender, offside here, offside there, corner, corner, goal kick, the odd foul, and repeat. Being in the middle however, one single moment or decision can make or break your game, the main objective of a referee is to maintain control of the game and make sure the kids enjoy it, which was made difficult on the under-12s match I was put in the middle of. I can't remember the name of one of the teams but the other was Spen Valley, whose player recieved the ball just outside the centre circle in his own half, played it, then was brought down by a boot. To the knee. Studs up. He goes down naturally in agony, but I can tell by the look on the 'culprit''s face that it was an accident. Thank you so much to the crowd for not yelling for a booking, all that was said was as the poor kid's manager came on "that were a bit high, wasn't it?" Though I'd already had a word, telling him to be more careful and that if he was older and had a different ref, that could easily have been a yellow or even red card. It was resolved with less fuss than I've faced in other situations thankfully.

Saturday:
The one I got put in the middle for this time was an under-13s match, I can't remember either teams' name this time! It was quite a nondescript match until the score was 5-0 to the blacks and I gave the blues a penalty, once again, any other ref, any other day, no penalty. Final score: Blacks 5, blues 3.

Sunday:
This is it, the semis and the finals, the last day of the last Yorkshire Cup, and I was in the middle of the under-13s cup final: Deighton Juniors vs. Bielsko Biała, the most useless advice I've ever been given: "they live near the German border so try talking to them in German" I don't speak German. Well, not much. The Deighton lot told me that Bielsko were known for going down easily, I never take any notice, however they were true to their reputation, every time one went down all their lot were shouting "dive! Dive!" etc. however on one of them the Bielsko midfielder was on the attack and was quite easily fouled. "Dive! Dive! That's never a free-kick!" "That's never seen a dive!" And I don't think I heard anything else from them. While the kid was down I called the manager over and they know more English than they let on: "Arbit! Is a yellow card!" "I'll decide what's necessary" "Okay, you are arbit." Arbit being Polish for referee and quite similar to the Spanish (which I do speak): árbitro. After that though I may have mistakenly let Bieslko back into the game, Deighton were 2-0 up in the middle of the second half and one of their players was making a break, got fouled but kept the ball, "advantage!" what happens literally half a second later? They lose it, pass, pass, pass, shot, 2-1. Crap. Thankfully the manner in which they scored their second would deflect some blame away from me in the event of a Bielsko victory, a shot led to the keeper dropping the ball and it was pounced on by the striker for 2-2, it would remain like this until full time. Naturally, extra time must now be played, I let them have their team talks and then blew my whistle, "captains please!" Deighton's captain over no problema, Bielsko must have forgotten English again, and Deighton's captain didn't know how to repeat my request in Polish, nor did I in German, 5 minutes later they finally made it back. Deighton scored a fairly routine through ball-shot-goal and all was settled.

Deighton Juniors U-13s 3-2 Bielsko Biała U-13s