Following on from last week's concerns about the number of football referees leaving the game through the abuse they get from the players, the dugouts and the spectators, it really has brought about comments from so many folk who attend our national winter sport and it gave me the opportunity to have a chat with Matt Drew who only stepped down from his job as an official last season at the age of 55.

Matt was a former player with Pilton United until the age of 35 and for the last twenty years has officiated in the middle in the first division of the Western League and on the line in the Western League Premier Division, so over the years he has had a good insight of the major concerns that not only come from myself, but so many others where football has been a major part of their lives for many years.

Matt said in our interview about the state of our game “the majority of the players are well behaved and as a referee, it many games it can be quite straight forward to punish a player if they are giving you a load of abuse with the sin bin being used now, which was a good introduction, with the yellow and the red if necessary”.

I have to be honest on this point, I personally don’t feel the sin bin is made use of enough during games, I certainly have not seen players sent to the dug outs enough, anyway back to Matt who added “the sin bin in particular does give you the opportunity to punish the team immediately for that ten minutes”.

“The players I have sin binned, which is about half a dozen over a few seasons, I believe only once did that team win after having a player sin binned, it automatically punishes the team, whereas a yellow card or red tend to punish the teams the following week and once those cards build up after an accumulation you are several games on”, good point but I personally still feel the sin bin is still bot used enough.

“I felt when I was refereeing with the Somerset County League, but more especially in the Western League Division One, the biggest problems came from the dug outs and the spectators”.

“The assistants would have the dug outs in their ears and to be honest the dug outs get away with quite a large amount of abuse and you could argue that the culture for instance of the tv, shows you can get away with so much verbal abuse”.

“As a referee and more especially a young referee, going to a parks game or a game in the Mid Somerset league for instance, you are on your own and if you are making your way in the game and haven’t actually played the game and you don’t really know anyone, you can turn up at any one of those park games without knowing a soul, with 30 players and management who will get quite angry about some of the decisions you make”.

Next week-being attacked during a game and after a game and is television a deterrent for referees below football league status, Matt Drew will add further proof why football officials are becoming less and less and it is a major problem.

by Merv Colenutt