From a Referee's point of view

Some thoughts offered by South Cambridgeshire Amblers WFC

My little pre-session speech went like this:

“We will be playing our usual 3 touch WALKING FOOTBALL with NO running and NO contact, therefore NO tackling.

My new friend, Mick Hill the FA WF referee, who fed me lots of really useful information, says use the whistle early so players understand quickly what isn’t acceptable in terms of contact and running. Allowing the “game to flow” sends out mixed messages and only confuses the players, so nip things in the bud.

So only walking, no speedy walking in the style of “you know who”. As ref, if I think you may be running, then you probably are, but in any case it only matters what the ref thinks.

So, play at a slower pace, use your energy to move around and find space which will buy you time. Make it easy to be passed to, and have an idea of where you will send the ball before you receive it. This is easier if you play with your head up.

Think about how the Premiership teams now play back to the keeper and ping it around the defence while trying to look for the pass upfield that might create a scoring opportunity.

NO tackling and NO contact. Simple. Instead we jockey, jockey and jockey some more. The player with the ball only has 3 touches so he has to shift it. By jockeying you can make life difficult for the man on the ball – unless of course he moves it on quickly.

Another tip regarding no contact. Imagine you will get a nasty electric shock in your genitals if you make contact with an opponent. That should help focus your mind.

Mick didn’t suggest the electric shock idea, but he did suggest blue cards could be shown to dissenters who disagree with decisions, which would mean 2 minutes in the sin bin, but I said I have never had any dissent from our squad and btw my name is Pinnochio. We’ll think about blue cards and if we need them depending on how the sessions go. So far this hasn’t been a big issue."