Tough game

My game today was difficult for a number of reasons, not more so than these teams were rivals and knew each other well, which wasn't a good thing as there appeared to be some history there. Also, I'm used to Skegby playing in Red, but they were in a very bright orange and Blackwell wore red and white. It was a very cold, blustery day and it took me a few minutes to even take the plunge and leave my well-heated car and warm up.

Skegby won the toss and chose to go with the wind, always a good move to get the advantage and that proved to be the case as they stormed into a 2-0 lead. They were very muchly ruled out a potential third as I took up an inexperienced position behind everyone from a corner. As the cross came in, it was cleared before being returned developing a situation where a Skegby striker was running the opposite way to the goal to collect the ball with the Blackwell keeper in hot pursuit. The keeper slid for the ball and from the poor position I was in, looked as though he'd got a full foot to the ball knocking it safe, so when the Skegby striker crashed to the ground, most of the people surrounding the pitch were up in arms when a penalty was not awarded. It became clear that the Skegby player was the one who had played the ball but I felt I couldn't reverse my decision.

At half time, a representative of Blackwell who was running the line had told me on his way past that it was a penalty and I must've been the only one in that postcode not to have seen it! The Skegby manager also asked why it wasn't given. I answered as honestly as I could saying that I'd probably taken up a poor position and so from where I was it looked as though the keeper had played the ball but I now know it was a wrong call. Very gratiuously he accepted that and said not to worry - easy to say when you're 2-0 up! I was wondering what would happen now should Blackwell, who now had the wind in their favour, come back and take the game themselves. The penalty decision would prove very costly in this scenario.

It looked like it would head that way too when only a few minutes into the first half, Blackwell pulled one back and now had the wind and the run of the game in their favour. Skegby still posed a threat against the wind, which Blackwell didn;t really do in the first half. It was still a worry though if the score was levelled, but then an incident occurred that made that eventuality unlikely. A Blackwell striker was fouled outside the box but he reacted by kicking out at the player making the tackle. He was soon surrounded by Skegby players and he squared up to one of them who pushed him, followed up by a batch of pushing and shoving by players on both sides. I eventually got the situation under control and called across the Blackwell striker and a Skegby player. I was also on the hunt for a second Skegby player who was heavily involved but I couldn't see him at this point. I cautioned the Skegby player for a push and told him in this situation he needed to keep his cool. I was then left with no choice but to send the Blackwell forward off for the kick and his reaction, much to his surprise.

With this, Blackwell were now on the back foot with trailing the game and down to ten men. Skegby made it 3-1 near the end of the game and the penalty decision was forgotten! The full time whistle went and there weren't any complaints at the end from either side so I felt quite pleased that I'd had a decent game.