RateTheRef

Totally irrelevant, but what a pleasure it has been to switch to BBC4 at 9pm in the last few weeks and watch reruns of Call My Bluff, followed by Facebook The Music. A reminder of the days when one could watch gentle, civilised television, free from bad language and violence.

Surely Facebook the Music is a modern re-boot of the old classic. 

I didn't watch the game as I was driving but I listened to it on the radio.  The Talksport commentary team were full of praise for his performance from start to finish.

The match referee apparently is based near Bournemouth but didn't bother to travel until the day of the game

"Didn't bother" is rather harsh.  Officials at this level are not full time.  Without knowing their personal circumstances, such criticism is unwarranted. 

Quote from: Carter on Tue 10 Feb 2026 14:48

How can this be allowed - ridiculous.

If both keepers have the same colours and no change the referee allows the match to proceed. At the level in question it shouldn’t happen and my feeling is that the keeper should not be allowed in the penalty area as it would be difficult to tell which yellow arm had put the ball in the net.
An idea for the ruling bodies, and free of charge.

The frustrating part is that this only seems to happen at the professional level, along with unnecessary clashes with referees’ kits.  It simply wouldn’t be tolerated further down the pyramid.  On the rare occasions a clash is spotted before kick-off at lower levels, someone always manages to produce an alternative shirt without any drama.  The professional game really ought to be better organised than this.

Really simple, rather than not being allowed to stop, I think it should be you’re not able to change speeds in my opinion.

Isn’t the whole point of a run-up that you change speed; starting from a standstill and building momentum into the strike?

Quote from: El Referee on Thu 22 Jan 2026 18:12

Quote from: Ref Watcher on Thu 22 Jan 2026 15:48

Quote from: El Referee on Thu 22 Jan 2026 14:09

I'd really like them to go further in trialing stopping the clock each time the ball goes out of play. Maybe they'd need to shorten the length of the match, but would in theory help stop this time wasting.

In principle, I support the idea of stopping the clock whenever the ball is dead and playing a fixed amount of time.  In practice, however, I have two significant concerns.  First, how would this be implemented at levels below the professional game? It would require dedicated timekeepers, which is simply not affordable, and so would almost certainly lead to different Laws being applied at different levels of the sport, an outcome I find highly undesirable.  Second, once the clock is routinely stopped, broadcasters would inevitably push to extend these pauses to accommodate advertising with the result that matches would last even longer.

You just stop your watch. Isn’t particularly difficult. Might end up hurting your finger in the end, but you’ll just have to hope they can keep the ball in play!

With the advertisements; that’s realistically going to happen anyway. I’m surprised they haven’t printed sponsorships in the centre circle yet……

They'd forget though, or more likely forget to restart it.  Even when I was relatively experienced i often forget to restart the watch, to the extent that I gave up stopping it unless there was obviously going to be a very lengthy stoppage.

And to underline how easy it is to forget: despite having been reading and writing about the challenges of remembering to start and stop watches, I  forgot to start my watches at the beginning of the second half while acting as Senior Assistant on Saturday.  I later contrived a brief conversation with the referee to establish how long we had been playing before anyone asked me how long was left.   

As Norwich don't win many games 5-0, and I had an hour to spare I thought I would re watch the 2nd half and make a note of all the time lost in the half.
 
The 2nd half lasted 49.05 ( 4 minutes added time signalled )

There were 4 goals and the time between the goal being scored and the restart were
1 min 10 secs
1 min 20 secs  ( this included a substitution )
1 min
1 min 7 secs

There were 3 other substitution periods
36 secs
20 secs
45 secs  ( 2 subs )

There were 6 Norwich goal kicks
Whilst 1-0   19 secs
Whilst 2-0   15 secs & 21 secs
Whilst 4-0   18 secs, 9 secs & 35 secs ( keeper cautioned )

and there was also 30 seconds wasted when there were 2 balls on the pitch.

So, a brief analysis of these incidents that together total 8:45:

Goals: I don’t agree with adding the entire period between a goal being scored and the restart.  The time taken for players to regroup is a natural part of the game and will always account for at least 30 seconds.  I would therefore deduct that from each goal stoppage.  On that basis, the allowance becomes 4:37 minus 2:00, leaving 2:37.

Substitutions: The full time taken should be added on, which comes to 1:41.

Goal kicks: I would only add time where there is clear action taken to delay the restart; otherwise, it is simply part of normal play.  This occurred once, so 0:35 should be added.

Two balls on the pitch: This is an unfortunate side effect of the multi-ball system, which generally saves time overall; swings and roundabouts.  Unless the second ball is introduced deliberately to waste time, I wouldn’t add anything for this.

That gives a total of 2:37 + 1:41 + 0:35 = 4:53. Given the scoreline, signalling four minutes of added time and not extending it much beyond that seems entirely reasonable.

I don’t see the benefit of a countdown for goal kicks/throw ins. The six second rule was never enforced so by bringing it in for goalkeepers holding the ball it has improved that massively. Referees already caution if they feel there is excessive delaying the restart for throws/goal kicks without too much disagreement, so I can’t see how it solves anything.

I disagree.  In my view, the eight-second countdown has been a clear success in speeding up the game.  I see no reason why a similar approach should not be applied to ball-out-of-play restarts.  The proposed sanction (awarding possession to the opposition) would be straightforward and proportionate. Some consideration would be needed regarding when the countdown begins but apart from that I see no significant issues.