A scary experience on the line

Had the honour on Good Friday to run the line in a cup final. As the junior lino on the team, i was assigned the opposite side to the dug outs and was astonished when we came out for kick off that a crowd of about 300 had gathered, all of them standing five yards behind me in the roped off section of the ground.
I've never reffed in front of such a large crowd and the ref on the day was completely unfazed by the size of the crowd, about 290 more than either of us usually face in the Maidstone leagues on a Saturday afternoon. I took my cue from him.
The insults started soon after the start and even the silly, joky comments were difficult to ignore. It was a spicy encounter, with lots of yellows and we needed to be on our toes. Halfway through the first half I noticed my colleague in the middle had just turned his head to look at one incident while a player leapt in violently with a two-footed foul about 35 yards away from me in the centre circle.
I flagged. The ref came over and we agreed on a yellow - just - for the offender. I think if the ref had seen it he would probably have given a red but he was quite rightly checking two players who were squaring up to each other. In retrospect I think the yellow was right. It was hard to tell if the player had deliberately set out to injure his opponent, but he was definitely reckless.
That decision brought plenty of abuse - mostly good natured - but the thing that surprised me most was how almost none of the crowd knew the basic laws of the game.
The end of the match was a thriller. A team scored twice in the last few minutes to come back for a surprise win, a real cup final thriller. All in all, a fascinating experience.