Two weekends ago, when the sports pages seemed to be filled with nothing but euphoria about David Beckham's goal sending England to the World Cup, I spotted a small item about a Football League Division 3 match.
Bottom club Exeter scored their first away win of the season in a blaze of controversy. A York player took aim from 25 yards as the referee blew for time. The ball finished up in the back of the net. No goal,
signaled the referee, and the York manager was ushered away after rushing on the field to confront the referee.
The question of timing does seem to fascinate some people. Television often shows Sir Alex Ferguson checking his watch during Manchester United games. The Laws of the Game say that the referee acts as time-keeper and keeps a record of the match. Under Law 7, The Duration of the Match, it says that 'allowance is made in each period for all time lost through substitutions, assessment of injuries, removal of injured players from the field of play, wasting time, any other cause', and concludes very definitely that 'allowance for time lost is at the discretion of the referee'.
Alan Pardew, the Reading Manager, said earlier in the season that referees have been told to add 30 seconds for every substitution. I'm not party to any instructions to League referees, but I was fortunate enough to be at a briefing by the FA's Head of Refereeing on this year's instructions from the International FA Board, and there was no such suggestion. The one comment the Board made about timekeeping was to express concern at the loss of playing time caused by the assessment of injury and the removal of players from the field. Referees were instructed to add the full amount for time lost.
Imagine if Alan Pardew's suggestion was correct. At the end of the half the
referee would have to check in his notebook how many substitutions have been made and then do a little mental arithmetic to decide how much to add. It doesn't work like that. All referees carry at least one stop watch, which they stop every time there is a stoppage for any of the reasons mentioned above. In this way when the watch reaches the forty five minutes all the stoppages have been taken into consideration. No need to do any working out or adding on.
I am often asked how the fourth official in league football knows how many added minutes to show on his board. The answer is quite simple. The referee, as well as having a stopwatch, will have a second watch which he doesn't stop. Towards the end of each half he will compare this watch with his stopwatch and the difference is the time to be added on. The referee conveys this by a prearranged signal to the fourth official.
Going back to the ball going into the net as the whistle blows. Critics say the referee can't be that exact with his timing so should always wait to see the result of any shot before blowing. It isn't that easy.
had a similar occurrence some years ago in a local Reading league game. As the ball came over for a corner I quickly checked my watch, two seconds to go. A home team player headed the ball towards goal but it hit the crossbar and rebounded into play. The two seconds were more than up and I blew my whistle for half time. As I blew another played picked up the rebound and shot. My whistle had already gone before the ball hit the net.
The home side, to put it mildly, were not pleased. But how many chances do you let a team have after your watch shows time? Say that shot had also rebounded, do you let them have another go?
The referee is the sole timekeeper and when his watch says time, that's when he should blow the whistle.
Dick Sawdon Smith