Torquay United Fans Forum

Being a referee myself (yellow4life also), the referees are watched regularly I believe.

As Jane says, we're going to be biased in our comments. Before I was a ref I was like everyone else, moaned at 90% of decisions against us, but now, I only really find myself moaning when it is something really stupid. A lot of the time, the ref has to make a decision there and then; I've had it myself, and I'm sure there are times when the ref thinks about something afterwards, and knows he got it wrong.

Excellent point but I'll try to take account of the bias. With this in mind I've had a read through a lot of the match threads (amazing what you find time to do when you're recently retired!) and it's just about possible to form a relatively objective judgment - for instance, universal condemnation of a ref across the reports of a particular game allows you at least to say "not good experience with this chap in so-and-so match last year" and cite a few examples.

We're all too biased though, BB!! When I used to watch Bournemouth fairly regularly as a neutral, it used to make me laugh how much stick the referee/linos got on a weekly basis from the home crowd, when in fact, the majority of the time they had probably made a good call. We're all guilty of yelling at the ref (except for me, being a lay-dee....) but if he was an official in another match, we'd maybe have a different opinion of the b*****d ;-)

Matt,

After a working life in journalism and advertising, and dealing with the practical side of many threatened libel actions, I can assure you that verbal abuse is not held to be an influence on "right-minded people".

The most memorable conversation I had about this was with the Very Senior Partner of one of London's most respected legal firms after he'd reviewed some papers I'd sent him.

VSP: "I gather this chap here is calling this other chap a female sexual organ."

Me: "Yes."

VSP: "Being called names doesn't win libel cases."

You're free to call me an effing idiot and there's not a thing I can do about it.

As far as referees are concerned, I'm going to start compiling a list based on people's comments here. Obviously will take some time to become useful, but I for one would like to get an idea - eventually! - of what to expect. Also obvious that performances can vary from match to match, but that can be taken into account.

Ok, I accept it's a thread about referees, but what about the fekking linos ?

Problem is, they are all referees.

Now listen linos, as I shall only post this wonce :

WATCH THE GAME AS LINOS, RUN THE LINE AS LINOS, STAY IN LINE AS LINOS, FLAG THE FLAG AS LINOS AND LET THE DICK IN THE MIDDLE WITH THE WHISTLE WHISTLE.

Linos watch the game as the referees they are (?) and miss things that an out and out lino should not.

And then they wonder why the Popside get arsee.

Fear not Fletch, judging from the evident eyesight of some of the referees we have had this season, unless your match reports are printed on billboards the size of the 'Hollywood' sign, they won't be able to read the writing.

Matt.

Best i go back and edit some of my comments on match threads then (NOT!) :lol: :lol: :lol:

Feel free to ignore this, it is merely an opportunity for me to waste some time researching stuff which I don't need to know...

From Halsbury's

[i]"The essence of a defamatory statement is its tendency to injure the reputation of another person. There is no complete or comprehensive definition of what constitutes a defamatory statement, since the word 'defamatory' is nowhere precisely defined. Generally speaking, a statement is defamatory of the person of whom it is published if it tends to lower him in the estimation of right thinking members of society generally or if it exposes him to public hatred, contempt or ridicule or if it causes him to be shunned or avoided.
[color=#FF0000]
A person's reputation is not confined to his general character and standing but extends to his trade, business or profession, and words will be defamatory if they impute lack of qualification, knowledge, skill, capacity, judgment or efficiency in the conduct of his trade, business or professional activity[/color]"[/i]

In this case, the word 'crap' would have its ordinary meaning. Were you (BernardB) to describe a referee as crap, the reasonable person (the chap on the Clapham omnibus) would infer from that a lack of skill, capacity or judgement. So while you have not attacked in any specific way the ability of a particular referee, by describing him as 'crap' you have injured his repuation, thus, causing defamation.

Sorry guys, you're going to be getting lots of this, we have a programme available to us called Lexis and it is a bit of a pig to use, so I'm finding excuses to practice wherever I can. They're getting just as much of it on the Focusstoc forum too.

On the actual subject at hand, there are one or two forums for other clubs where their matchday threadstarter (their NickGull, if you will) will post up the name of the referee and give some basic details about his history with the club and his league statistics, so they must be published somewhere.

Maybe this is something else which Nick could add to his threads, unless it is felt by the majority that this is a step too far?

Matt.
[color=#FF0000]Drummond-Jackson v British Medical Association [1970] 1 All ER 1094 at 1104[/color]

There's always a lot of comment about referees of course, but I was wondering if anyone - not necessarily on this forum - monitors and keeps a record of their performance? There can't be too many to keep an eye on. (Would make a great PhD thesis!)

It would be very helpful to know in advance which referees are crap/don't give us anything and which are terrific/award us three penalties a game. I know assistants play a part too but in the end the quality of the man in the middle is what counts.

Note on the law of libel, in case anyone's worrying: it's OK to say someone's crap (which is clearly just an extreme opinion) but not to say he appears not to know the rules (which calls his competence into question).