Reading RA - From the Middle

The worst job in refereeing?

Giving a penalty in the last minute? Standing in the middle of a boring match in January wishing you were somewhere else? (Nearly but not quite!) No, it is the dreaded pitch inspection.

On the local parks

This is an area where there is a big difference between local football and the more senior leagues. If your match is at Prospect Park or Christchurch Meadows in Reading, there is a good chance that, if the pitch is unplayable because of the weather, then you will be informed before you have got out of your bed on a Sunday morning. This is because these, and many similar pitches are Council-maintained and they, in their wisdom, will call matches off in advance.

This in itself is not a flawless system. I can recall, as I am sure many of your readers can, situations where a complete weekend has been called off early on a Thursday or Friday because of weather, only to find on Sunday morning the pitches are superb with a clear and sunny sky.

More complicated at senior level

In the more senior leagues, from the Chiltonian to the Premiership, the responsibility for calling off a match is invariably the match referee’s. And now we are in the season of bad weather, the early Saturday morning calls are the ones that I dread. Anything from “I know it should be all right but could you come to Aldershot as it looks a bit iffy” to “I know it’s only 8-30 a.m. but could you pop over early to stop our opposition travelling?” These callers often forget you have job and a life outside of football.

I was at Brentford a few weeks ago when the match was called off because the pitch was waterlogged. Imagine our situation of having to tell the opposition the game is off, 90 minutes before the kick off, when they have come from Carlisle!

A no win situation

Back to my main point. There is nothing I hate more than pitch inspections. In some instances the decision is easy: a rutted, icy pitch; one with water ankle deep; or fog so thick you can’t see halfway across the pitch (but then, could it clear?). It is the other times that are worse. Club officials expect you to become an instant meteorologist and always on call. Trying to ascertain eight hours before a match whether it will dry or flood, thaw or freeze, clear or close in. Some people desperately want the game to be played at whatever cost to life or limb: “Come on ref, the programmes are printed and the pies are in the oven”. Others wanting it off because they hope to protect their pitch for the next, much more important, game: “Call it off ref. I know it’s only muddy tonight but we’ve got a big cup game on Saturday”.

All about protecting the players

One reason (overdone by managers and players when it suits them) is that “the game would be a farce”. Sometimes that’s true, but in football law the main reason for postponing a match is to protect players (and even officials), from serious injury caused by an unsafe pitch. Just remember this the next time you are at Prospect Park pushing a referee to make up his mind one way or the other. He would be the one to have to live with the thought that his decision might have been a contributing factor to a serious injury.

John Moore

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