SOCCER  STORIES

A Comment about Soccer Referees:

     Those who complain about referees should be willing to take a certification course and become referees to make the situation better.
      Referees (in every sport) make calls that affect games and often have doubts about whether they made the right call and sometimes those doubts don’t ever go away. But in my experience I’ve never met one who didn’t do his or her best to remain neutral.
      There’s a terrific article in the April 28th issue of Soccer-America about Pierluigi Collina – in recent years considered the best soccer referee in the world. He’s the bald ref that reminds me of cartoon character, Underdog’s arch-enemy, Simon Bar Sinister.
      Collina talks about Esse Baharmast, the US ref, who made a critical Penalty Kick call late in the 1998 World Cup game (in France) between Brazil and Norway. As many of you will remember, the kick was converted and Norway won the game 2-1 and finished second in Group A ahead of Morocco. No official camera caught the action. The replay (showing no foul) was shown over and over in the US and you know it was shown all the time in Europe as evidence that Americans could not be trusted to referee high level soccer.
     In fact the outcry was that Baharmast had made up the call and that no US official was ready to be the center ref at such a big match. He was called racist and terrible by most every newspaper in Europe. Collina was with Baharmast for the next two days and said that the US ref was a destroyed individual who thought that he had ruined every chance for an American to ever ref a World Cup game again. Even FIFA called his actions into question. Everyone in the world was certain that Baharmast was wrong.
      Fortunately a few days later a Swedish TV channel produced a film showing an indisputable foul where the attacker was pulled down blatantly in the box by his shirt. On that camera view it was an obvious call.
      Remember that incident, next time you dispute a call from your seat 100 yards away from the action. Want a better view of the action – get certified. Refs have the best view on the field.
      One of my favorite quotes by Collina is, "I believe in the traditional role of accepting decisions as part of discipline of sportsmanship and fair play."

Ken Gamble

A Strange Soccer Story - Sam Bartram

"Soon after the kick-off (fog) began to thicken rapidly at the far end, travelling past Vic Woodley in the Chelsea goal and rolling steadily towards me. The referee stopped the game, and then, as visibility became clearer, restarted it. We were on top at this time, and I saw fewer and fewer figures as we attacked steadily.

I paced up and down my goal-line, happy in the knowledge that Chelsea were being pinned in their own half. "The boys must be giving the Pensioners the hammer," I thought smugly, as I stamped my feet for warmth. Quite obviously however, we were not getting the ball into the net. For no players were coming back to line up, as they would have done following a goal. Time passed, and I made several advances towards the edge of the penalty area, peering through the murk which was getting thicker every minute. Still I could see nothing. The Chelsea defence was clearly being run off its feet.

After a long time a figure loomed out of the curtain of fog in front of me. It was a policeman, and he gaped at me incredulously. "What on earth are you doing here?" he gasped. "The game was stopped a quarter of an hour ago. The field's completely empty."

And when I groped my way to the dressing-room the rest of the Charlton team, already out of the bath, were convulsed with laughter."

From Sam Bartram, by himself, 1956.
 

Parallel that story with this recent one from January 10th, 2003

Goalie plays on alone in the fog

A goalkeeper played on for ten minutes unaware that his match had been abandoned because of thick fog.

Richard Siddall, who couldn't see beyond his penalty box, assumed all of the action was at the other end.

He only realised when a fan told him the match between his side Stocksbridge Steels, near Sheffield, and Witton Albion had been called off after 30 minutes.

Richard told the Daily Star: "I didn't have a clue. I just stood there waiting for a player to come through the mist."

His manager Wayne Biggins, a former Sheffield Wednesday player, said: "We were in the dressing rooms but Richard thought we were still playing.

"No-one had a clue where he was until it dawned on us that he must have still been on the pitch."

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_738049.html?menu=news.quirkies.unlucky