Running the line ain't easy - but you have to get it right

It was Daniel heading back to the lion's den today, running the line in a league match between Biddenden and Maidstone Athletic. The referees' facilities were wonderful, gleamingly clean with steaming showers for the team of three match officials.

Match of the Day has thrown up a couple of incorrect assistants' decisions today, but I can assure you that running the line is in some ways more difficult than being in the middle. Offside decisions can be an absolute pig to call; players deliberately place themselves as close as they can to the last defender to try to get in front when the ball comes through.

The linesman watches the play. When the ball is kicked, you look along the line as quickly as you possibnly can and then give your decision. They can be so tight that you're left wondering for a few minutes whether the decision was the right one. And the most difficult decisions to flag for are when half an attacking line up is walking back from an offside decision while one or two players hover onside, but jumbled up with the crowd of other players.

Steve Bruces's Birmingham were deprived of a near certain goal against Liverpool when Marcus Bent - about two yards onside - was adjudged offside when it fact it was about four other players who were not in active play. All the assistant is seeing, however, is one huge jumble of players. In the premiership, these guys generally get it right but sometimes they're just too difficult to call.

In the weald of Kent, luckily for me, play is slower than the premiership and it's easier to spot the wayward striker or the full back who has forgotten he's part of a back four and is unwittingly playing the opposition onside. On another warm autumn afternoon, the home team take an early 3-0 lead - including a 40-yard scorcher that would have been a contender for goal of the seaosn if the cameras had been there and the Beeb was still running the competition - and never really looked like giving the game away.