And suddenly, the cry went up from the touch line. "MAIM THEM!!!
I recognised the voice immediately. It was the manager of the away team, a bloke I know well, friendly, jovial and highly respected throughout the league.
His newly promoted team, playing their first league match of the season, was 3-0 down and in danger of shipping a bucketload, and it was clear the manager was trying to inspire his team to be more aggressive in the tackle. But incitement to maim was going a teensy bit too far.
I stopped play, trotted over to him and delivered a short, sharp rollocking saying that I would not accept such behaviour in any match I was refereeing. He was genuinely puzzled. "I didn't actually mean that they should maim anyone, just that they should get stuck in," was his feeble, if honest, response.
Just to test our good relations even further, I then awarded a penalty against his team for a foul about 18 inches from the edge of the box. The markings were poor and there was a rise just near the point where the foul took place. Even though I was about 12 yards away from the incident, I had fixed in my mind the exact spot where the foul had taken place and ran across just to confirm that point was inside the area. It was.
But the side that conceded the penalty wasn't happy. They construed my desire to confirm the penalty as weakness. Perhaps it was, but it was more important to me to get it right.
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