PATRON:- Pam Wells 01483 833394 PRESIDENT:- Peter Guest :- 01483 771649 CHAIRMAN Vince Penfold VICE-CHAIRMAN:- Rick Green SECRETARY Roy Butler 07747 800687 TREASURER 01483 423808 & MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY:- Bryan Jackson 1 Woodstock Grove, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 2AX TRAINING OFFICER:- Corin Readett SUPPLIES OFFICERS: - Tony Price 01483 836388 / 07766 973304 R.A.. DELEGATES :- Brian Reader 01483 480651 Roy Butler WARBLER Editor :- Mac McBirnie, 16 Robins Dale 01483 835717 / 07770 643229 Knaphill Woking Surrey GU21 2LQ [email protected] COMMITTEE:- Derek Stovold LIFE MEMBERS :- David Cooper Gareth Heighes Cedge Gregory Chis Cook Chris Jones Meril Readett Ken Chivers Colin Barnett Neil Collins Friends of Woking Referees Society Roy Lomax ; Saundra Evans ; INSIDE THIS MONTH’S WARBLER Page 1: Agenda Page 2 : From the Chair Page 3 : Accounts /Membership update Page 4 : Mac’s Musings Page 5/6 : Tony Pullis’s proposal Page 7 :It wasn’t obvious obviously Page 8 : The art of catching rabbits Page 9/10/11 : Before we criticise the law, we must first try to understand it Page 13 : The Wisdom of Willard Page 14 : It’s a Family Affair Page 15 : Red card threat player jailed for driving at referee Page 17 : The Good Old Days Page 18 : Murphy’s Meanderings Page 19 : Belgium 2011 Page 20 : Dates for Your Diary Page 21 : Lee Cable—A Profile Page 24 : Plum Tree Page 26 /27 : What would you do Answers / What would you do? The Warbler The Magazine of the Woking Referees’ Society Meadow Sports Football Club Loop Road Playing Fields, Loop Road, Kingfield, Woking, Surrey, GU22 9BQ 7.30pm for a prompt 8pm start AGENDA 8am CHAIRMAN’S WELCOME OUR GUEST SPEAKER Lee Cable Woking RA Member, FA Regional Referee Coach, Football League Assessor, Former Football League Referee ―Failing to prepare is preparing to fail" BREAK SOCIETY BUSINESS 10pm CLOSE NEXT MEETING January 10th December 2011 Guest Speaker Dean Mohareb FA National Referee Manager – Workforce The Deadline for the January Warbler is Friday 26th November 2010 1 The Warbler The Magazine of the Woking Referees’ Society Welcome to the December Warbler. Our thanks go to Ian Blanchard for a very interesting and interactive November meeting. Ian’s subject was refereeing with courage. I think all of those that were at the November meeting recognised how having the courage to give the correct decisions can only help the game and our refereeing. Thanks again Ian for a very enjoyable and informa- tive evening. This month we welcome our very own Lee Cable. Lee has operated at the very highest level and is now an assessor on the football league and a level 3-referee coach. Lee has always supported the society and always delivers a very good and interesting subject. Pam our patron has very kindly agreed to lay on a spread for Lee, sorry I mean the pre Christmas meeting and the Christmas raffle will be drawn so please come along and show your support. With a thick frost and biting wind Winter is well and truly here, the Scottish have gone on strike, the draw for the third round of the FA cup is about to happen and I have lost my first game to the weather. Having lost my game fairly early in the morning it gave me the opportunity to arrange to go and watch a colleague. What was interesting for me watching a game that was at my level, it really helped me to understand that even when the referee is doing his job and doing it well, the players still moan about every decision. It gave me great reassurance that actu- ally when they are on our case it’s less likely to be down to our performance but more like their ability to only see things from one side. That’s not to say I don’t ever make mistakes but it does put the winging and moaning into perspective. If you agree with what has gone on north of the boarder or not, what it does show is that referees everywhere show an unbreakable solidarity. It’s this soli- darity that I believe sets us as a group of people apart from any other. It’s a great opportunity for me to thank all my colleagues within the refereeing fraternity for always showing me support throughout my refereeing career. It’s also a timely opportunity to remind any new referee that we, your colleagues, are here to help and support you. I for one and I know I speak for others, am always happy to talk about football and refereeing at any time. Don’t forget to see Roy Butler and confirm your place on the Belgium trip May 2011. Roy will be happy to take stage payments to ease the pain of one big pay- ment nearer the time. Unfortunately I am unable to attend the December meeting so I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing you all in the New Year. Vince 2 The Warbler The Magazine of the Woking Referees’ Society RA Membership in Surrey as at Oct 10 Month end Mar-08 Mar-09 Mar-10 Oct-10 Surrey 545 503 532 421 Croydon 98 92 93 87 Dorking 27 33 27 18 Farnham 30 29 34 23 Guildford 61 60 63 48 Kingston 27 33 44 44 Redhill 90 69 68 36 Sutton 42 42 57 44 Wimbledon 51 42 29 21 West London 17 14 14 12 Woking 89 89 103 88 STOP PRESS !! The Surrey Primary League has appointed a new Referees Secretary: Scott Brundish The SPL are currently recruiting new and experienced referees for Sundays. If you are interested, please contact Scott, who is a Referee and league officer, on 07956 321741 or [email protected] From the Treasurer 2010 Current Status General £990.60 Supplies £610.64 Belgium £0.00 Youth Fund £113.50 Total £1,714.74 Membership 89 Full Members 1 Associate 5 Friends 3 The Warbler The Magazine of the Woking Referees’ Society I’ve had a few incidents to this year with young men wearing bits of metal in their ears. These are not earrings as such hanging from earlobes, but metal studs through the piece of flesh at the front of the ear, which I’m informed by a website I found, is called the Targus. The give-away is the piece of sticking plaster on the ear. On enquiring whether they have a wound the answer in inevitably no, it’s a stud. Naturally on suggest- ing they remove it we are told they can’t possibly take it out. I always say in that case they can’t play and most times the offending article would be out within a matter of seconds. This year I’ve had one case where the player either couldn’t or wouldn’t remove it—so he didn’t play and one where he struggled until half time to get it out. Eventually Mum turned up with a pair of wire cutters and it was snipped out. Amusingly the Mum then turned to me and said ― Thank you so much, I really hated the thing‖ The point, however, is that I’m always told that the ref last week let him play with it in. Obviously they could be trying it on, but I’ve had managers say the same thing, which is very worrying. We as referees are often told by players and managers that they find lack of con- sistency a real problem. There will always be an element of this due to differ- ences of opinion regarding what is and what isn’t a foul, or whether it’s actually been spotted, the tempo and feel of the game etc. Language in particular can be open to interpretation, but for something as straight forward as a visible piece of jewellery there can only be one answer—NO. So if there are any officials out there who are letting players play with jewellery would they please stop as they are making those of us who are trying to prevent young lads having to go to casualty with bits of metal embedded in their heads, more difficult. The biggest refereeing news at the time of going to print is the strike by the Scottish Referees. Des Kelly in the Daily Mail on Saturday 27th speaks of his ad- miration of our colleagues north of he border where as he says they have been the victims of systematic abuse and vicious accusations of bias. I quote‖ there have been disgusting comments this week suggesting that refe- rees should accept getting it in the neck because it’s part of the job and they de- served to be demonised.‖ …‖When the Chairman of Celtic started to demand in- dividual sackings and calling for the dismantling of the SFA, claiming his club were constantly victimised official decided enough was enough.‖ What I don’t quite understand is why aren’t the clubs and managers who are making these accusation fined by the Scottish FA as they would in this country.? Interestingly the Polish and Portuguese referees who we were told would take charge of the weekend’s games have backed down, but officials from Israel, Malta and Luxemburg were drafted in. So much for solidarity . In Sundays paper I read that Hamilton Boss Billy Reid led the chorus of praise for the stand ins, but I wonder how long that will last. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year Keeeeeeep Whistling ! ( Widdy for PM!) Mac 4 The Warbler The Magazine of the Woking Referees’ Society Tony Pulis's idea of relegating referees could work – with a tweak Managers are unreliable witnesses but a group of assessors could mark the referees – with the worst being relegated If I was going to invent something crazy, just to add even more spice to the mix, I might have come up with the idea of promotion and relegation for referees, based on votes from each club at the end of the season, but sadly I don't have the imagination, and in any case Tony Pulis has just got there first.