Running the line's not easy - that's my excuse!

I had the mother of all offside decisions to give while running the line in a County League Premier Division game on a blustery Saturday afernoon in Gravesend, and I'm afraid I got it wrong. Luckily for me, in a game decided by a single goal, a defender did my work for me and slid in to prevent a goal that would have been my fault.
No excuses, I should have been better positioned, but a perfect storm of events seemed to conspire to throw my concentration.

Having left home in sunshine a couple of hours earlier, I was surprised to find myself staring straight into a strong wind with a cold drizzle that quickly soaked through the black kit. It wasn't easy to see clearly what was happening 50 yards away.
I'd already given several offsides against the home team, whose forwards dawdled in getting back into position, when suddenly I found myself in a whirlwind of three or four defenders and three attackers, all of whom, in a second or so, seemed to be wandering between on and offside positions as the ball came through.
And then, a blue attacker had the ball and he was five or 10 yards in front of me, accepting the ball with the last defender standing what looked, to me, level with the attacker.I kept my flag down and the attacker was only stopped by a lunging tackle as he went to shoot.
The defending team went nuts with me. I was clearly out of position and I still, 24 hours later, don't know exactly what happened. As far as I can tell I was thrown by the sudden movement of half a dozen players and I may have frozen as the last defender - the player an assistant is supposed to stick with through thick and thin - changed several times in a second or two. Vision was difficult in the nasty weather, but I have to hold my hands up to the mistake.
A spectator who knew my experience on the local newspaper, where I used to write a refereeing column, berated me, telling me mistakenly it was my lack of fitness that had made me make the mistake. That was harsh and unfair. OK I'm not fit, but that was nothing to do with the incorrect decision I had made. No, I had simply been beaten by circumstances and caught out of position. Better concentration, may, in fact, be the answer rather than better fitness.
That said, it was a fun match. I was lining to old friend Dave Boughton, who I hadn't seen for several years, and another mate Mick Filmer was on the other line. We all knew several players from both teams so there was some healthy chatter flowing between the officials, players and managers. In the end the game was decided in favour of the home team when the ball struck an attacker's knee and flew over a defender into the goal.