"Well done ref!"

At last! After 3 full months of tiring, difficult though thoroughly enjoyable games as an FA qualified referee, I received my first in-game positive shout from a club manager today!

I was to spend the day in Rainworth for two games for the Rangers at U13 and U16. I hadn't actually heard from the U16 side so hoped by just turning up, I was still able to take the game following the U13 match and that by them not having contacted me meant they had found themselves a replacement. As it happened upon arriving at the ground I learned that the U16 side had folded so I was left with just the single game. I spoke to the referee secretary at half time to see if there was any chance of an afternoon game but the only option was being a linesman at a game quite far away and I didn't fancy travelling all that way to spend almost 2 hours earning just a tenner. The experience would have been useful though.

Making do with the one game, it was a league game between Rainworth Tigers and Drezden Colts, both sides I knew well from my experience as a manager at this age group. I assumed it would bea bit of a whitewash as Rainworth Tigers were quite a strong side from memory, with experience in the top flight, whilst Drezden had fell upon bad times recently, losing a lot of players and spending the past season or two down near the foot of division 3.

As it went though, it was a very close game, both sides creating many chances early on and it stayed tight for the majority of the game. At the start I was informed that one of the Rainworth players suffered from Tourettes syndrome so I shouldn't reprimand him for foul language. As the players were warming up I sought out the player by the number I was given so that I knew who to ignore, but typically I got the wrong one so had stern words with the first player who told me where to go in less friendlier terms! I quickly realised that this was the young player I now had to turn a blind eye too.

Rainworth took the lead in the first half, about 10 minutes in but Drezden were playing well and battled back to equalise. On 2 or 3 occasions, when the away side broke the flag was quite quick to go up even if it looked quite close so I made sure I was keeping up with play to check that the decisions being made were accurate, especially as the Drezden manager was becoming more and more frustrated with the close calls. I'm usually quite good for spotting the linesman as if a ball is played where there is any suspicion of offside, I'll look straight across at him but at one point in the first half, not long after Rainworth had gone 2-1 up, a scramble in the box from a corner led to Drezden equalising again but I was being informed that the flag was up. I went across to speak to the linesman who couldn't quite explain why he had flagged, he just said someone was offside. I questioned which player was offside, if they had played the ball or interfered in any way but the response was quite muted so I didn't hesitate to award the goal.

Again in the second half, the flag popped up on every possible occasion so when it looked dubious I overuled it, much to the delight of the Drezden manager who made a very vocal point of praising me for it. It was great for the confidence as referee's get so much stick so it was finally nice to have some very positive feedback. I had felt that I had got it right and by displaying that I wasn't going to just acknowledge the assistant every time he raised his flag, it seamed to do the trick as it only now went up when there was a clear call to be made.

The rest of the game then went smoothly, Rainworth eventually running out 5-3 victors but Drezden can take a great deal of heart from the performance and I myself was delighted with my own game. After the game a number of spectators from both sides also thanked me for a good game so I took a lot of heart from today.