One of the best pieces of advice I received as a young referee when I started to run the line, was 'Don't get involved with spectators and any comments that they may make'. Invaluable to me as someone who loves nothing better than a good argument.
As you progress to the larger grounds with crowds in the thousands, you seldom hear individual comments. There is just a mass of noise. You know when the crowd is displeased with you of course and today there are the usually obscene choruses which weak-minded supporters love to sing when decisions go against their team.
When you run the line in lower football where the spectators can be measured in hundreds or even dozens, they are normally much closer to you. You can hear quite clearly what they have to say. It can often be difficult to resist turning around and correcting opinions and comments that they make. Lining at these games does make you realise not only how biased supporters are, but how limited their knowledge of the laws of the game really is. Spectators at football matches come out with the most incredible nonsense at times.
There was an example that I had to listen to earlier this season. The away team goalkeeper at the far end of the ground had caught the ball. He then ran with it to kick it upfield but he strayed outside the penalty area with the ball still in his hands. The assistant referee spotted this and immediately flagged. The referee quite rightly awarded a direct free kick just outside the penalty area.
It took a few minutes for the spectators at my end to realise what the free kick was for and they weren't satisfied. I heard one spectator say to his mate, 'The goalkeeper should be sent off for that, handling outside his penalty area'. His mate agreed. 'He's got to go, that's the rules'. I'm not sure whether it is pure bias in favour of their home team, a genuine misunderstanding of the laws or just ignorance which makes spectators say things like that.
Ignoring the fact that football is played to the laws of the game, not rules, those spectators could not be more wrong. And yet they may have been influenced by seeing goalkeepers sent off in other games for handling the ball outside the the area. So what's the difference?
Law 12 - Sending-Off Offences, says 'a player is sent off and shown the red card if he denies the opposing team a goal or an obvious goal scoring opportunity by deliberately handling the ball'. We usually associate this with an defending player punching the ball away as it is about to go into the goal, but it can also apply to a goalkeeper outside his own penalty area.
Take a situation where an attacker has broken away and has only the goalkeeper between him and the goal. The goalkeeper dashes outside his area and handles the ball to prevent the opponent's progress. This is quite clearly denying an 'obvious goal scoring opportunity'. The full sanction of the law must be imposed and the goalkeeper sent off. Had there been defenders behind the goalkeeper then it would not be such a clear case of 'obvious goal scoring opportunity' and the goal keeper would then probably be cautioned for unsporting behaviour.
There can be a difference of opinion in some situations but there can be no question of the goalkeeper at the match I was at, denying his opponents a goal scoring opportunity. He was either pushing his luck to see how far he could get away with, or he was simply careless in running too far with the ball. In any case it was simply handball and warranted nothing more than the direct free kick despite the claims of the spectators.
Dick Sawdon Smith