Idiot parent

[OB..]

post hoc ergo propter hoc.

So you are seriously suggesting that the match should have been abandonned because of the action of one idiot, regardless of any other factors?

The first thing the referee has to do is deal with the immediate situation ie attempt to prevent it escalating. That is surely standard. How well that goes should surely determine what he does next. Why would abandonment be the first thought rather than the last? What have the players done to deserve that if there is no reason to believe they are in further danger?

 

[RobLev]

So you are seriously suggesting that the match should have been abandonned because of the action of one idiot, regardless of any other factors?

The first thing the referee has to do is deal with the immediate situation ie attempt to prevent it escalating. That is surely standard. How well that goes should surely determine what he does next. Why would abandonment be the first thought rather than the last? What have the players done to deserve that if there is no reason to believe they are in further danger?

If you have any good ideas for establishing the truth of that last condition in the very limited time available, I haven't seen them yet.

 

[Blackberry]

A sense of proportion? :biggrin:epper:

That is engagingly honest of you huge respect. I'll see what I can do, any preferences?

 

[davidgh]

OB, I am completely with you on this.

RobLev, what OB is saying is that it is your job, along with the coaches to both settle things down and assess the situation in an ongoing way. There is absolutely no need to pre-judge this now. You may all be masterful diplomats, the parents may be restrained and sensible and the whole thing a matter of isolated stupidity with no previous offences and huge remorse. There may or may not be relevant club officers present to help and pour additional cold official water on the problem.

To me the main thing is that the situation is dealt with, and that minimum disruption is caused to the kids if at all possible. Stupidity does not need to rule the day, common sense fairness and reason can be the winner, particularly in rugby.

The main message is, if something goes wrong, CALM IT DOWN, don't wind it up, Any talk of abandonment at an early stage of the incident is just ridiculous panic and will upset the kids and probably the parents. It is obviously totally over the top. Stupidity happens, calm it down!!

This isn't necessarily even an angry isolated idiot, in the case I saw it was just pure stupidity, the foot just went out, the regret and embarassment was immediate, every body else present was calmly horrified, the tripped player was fine, the facts were recorded, the idiot was led away to be dealt with, and the game continued.

Life then proceeded and a large ple of legal muck was tipped over the offender, end result - a lesson learnt.

 

[davidgh]

OB

shame I didn't see that bit earlier!!

Unfortunately it seems to be hard to find one here on earth. Hope fully, in that this is rugby, it can be re-established. They may also deal with it better in the flesh than in the theoretical!

personally I think we should call the Feds, have the electric chair on stand-by and have the culprit taken away to the Pen in a fleet of police helicopters!

Oh and everybody involved should be issued with assault rifles, just in case the idiot parent turns out to have a gun!!

 

[Browner]

If you have any good ideas for establishing the truth of that last condition in the very limited time available, I haven't seen them yet.

Have a enforced break in play, say 10 mins, invite all the coaches to listen to your expectations.
Ask offending coach to tell you whether they feel they can control their supporters. IF he says he can, then advise offending side coach that you considered abandoning the game and the whole supporter group is now on a Supporter Warning, and repeat offence will end the match and they will be named as the cause.

If neither coach admits to 'owning the offender' or the offender adult won't leave the enclosure then that makes it more doubtful that you can proceed safely. It remains a judgement call, and a lot of referees have the assessment skills to make these calls as well.

 

[andyscott]

Very easy to say from the lofty heights of Level 6 Dev Squad.

Meanwhile, at every club in the union, every Sunday morning, there's a scramble to find the last set of post protectors in the kit store.

Every pitch roped off? Only if you want to abandon about half of all games currently played.

Nonesense

It is a requirement of all junior formal games in Yorkshire, and if you rock up and say game is off unless rope is found, watch how fast it appears. Its not expensive and not difficult to enforce.

 

[andyscott]

According to the OP article this was the Herts County U16 Shield Final. So it was a special Final match occasion and at this age group one I would expect the host club to have the pitch roped off at the very least.

That would certainly be the expectation in my CB for any Final at adult or youth levels, and what I see happen at host clubs, who also lay on extra beer tents, hog roast / BBQ etc for County Finals.

As PaulDG says unrealistic (and un-necessary) week in week out for all youth matches, but it is a requirement in our CB for all Colts and U17 League and Cup matches.

Yes but why not all? the ammount of times, I have had to drop my shoulder and put some supporter/sub on his arse for getting in my way as an AR is rediculous.

 

[Toby Warren]

So reading in today's paper the game was restarted - after a few minutes. The victim was so badly he affected he only managed to score one more try ;-)

For this who feel it's a stonewall abandonment should the ref face a sanction / words of advice for getting his judgement so wrong?

 

[crossref]

here's a link - that's interesting as all the previous reports said the game was abandoned.
just shows you can't believe what you read in the papers.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/new...ays-culprit-acted-like-naughty-schoolboy.html

 

[davidgh]

Andy,

From the outcome it clearly would have been a good idea to rope the pitch off, but it wasn't done! We all know ropes are good for the ref, and the teams. I think a thread on pitch roping would be a great idea. There probably should be better guidelines and more pressure on clubs to rope pitches.

Since there wasn't a rope here it doesn't really come into it! Unless the ref queried the hosts at the beginning and started the game having protested, in which case calling it off at this point would be reasonable.

 

[Browner]

So reading in today's paper the game was restarted - after a few minutes. The victim was so badly he affected he only managed to score one more try ;-)

For those who feel it's a stonewall abandonment.... should the ref face a sanction / words of advice for getting his judgement so wrong?

To be fair to those persons, it's a judgement call and the whistler in charge of the subject match had many advantages of fixture (county blazers ARs etc) that others in a similar scenario may not get. Anyway I'm cool with anyone abandoning if they deem it necessary within their comfort leve, but as indicated I'd be wanting not manage through to conclusion if I could.

 

[Toby Warren]

To be fair to those persons, it's a judgement call and the whistler in charge of the subject match had many advantages of fixture (county blazers ARs etc) that others in a similar scenario may not get. Anyway I'm cool with anyone abandoning if they deem it necessary within their comfort leve, but as indicated I'd be wanting not manage through to conclusion if I could.

Browner I agree. What I am surprised about is others think it's an automatic abandonment. For me it's anything from a short break to sort out the idiot and agree how to move on through to an abandonment - all depending on context and reaction of the players, coaches and spectators etc.

If I heard about this and ref said game over I'd 100% support and agree with that call, if as the ref did in this case he had a small break restarted and finished the game without further incident then I also 100% support this outcome.

I understand that the idiot needs to be dealt with including ref's input. But as this case proves playing on and dealing with the idiot aren't mutually exclusive.

 

[Browner]

To be fair to those persons, it's a judgement call and the whistler in charge of the subject match had many advantages of fixture (county blazers ARs etc) that others in a similar scenario may not get. Anyway I'm cool with anyone abandoning if they deem it necessary within their comfort level, but as indicated I'd be wanting to manage through to conclusion if I could.

Spell check !!!!

 

[irishref]

Obviously he was watching Monty Python's "the meaning of life"...

 

[SimonSmith]

So you are seriously suggesting that the match should have been abandonned because of the action of one idiot, regardless of any other factors?

The first thing the referee has to do is deal with the immediate situation ie attempt to prevent it escalating. That is surely standard. How well that goes should surely determine what he does next. Why would abandonment be the first thought rather than the last? What have the players done to deserve that if there is no reason to believe they are in further danger?

Yes I am.
You take the stance that there is no reason to believe that they are in further danger. I suggest that in fact you can't make that statement with a degree of confidence.

My stance is that one player having been endangered by assault, I have no way of knowing that players are NOT at risk. I also, unhappily, have at least one datum point to establish that there is a higher apparent degree of risk than when the match started.
I also have no tools to help me manage any safety element - like a set of ropes, for example.

Factors to consider:
Child safety.
Liability mitigation: As I've said upthread, if there was a repeat, or something similar, the referee's culpability would be established. In employment situations we call it 'negligent retention'.
Game management: admittedly, at 59 points up it won't be game changing, but of the game does continue, how comfortable will the kids be running to the wing again? Me, I'd certainly have second thoughts.

 

[RobLev]

OB, I am completely with you on this.

RobLev, what OB is saying is that it is your job, along with the coaches to both settle things down and assess the situation in an ongoing way. There is absolutely no need to pre-judge this now. You may all be masterful diplomats, the parents may be restrained and sensible and the whole thing a matter of isolated stupidity with no previous offences and huge remorse. There may or may not be relevant club officers present to help and pour additional cold official water on the problem.

To me the main thing is that the situation is dealt with, and that minimum disruption is caused to the kids if at all possible. Stupidity does not need to rule the day, common sense fairness and reason can be the winner, particularly in rugby.

The main message is, if something goes wrong, CALM IT DOWN, don't wind it up, Any talk of abandonment at an early stage of the incident is just ridiculous panic and will upset the kids and probably the parents. It is obviously totally over the top.

This is where we part company. The default position when an incident like this happens would be abandonment.

You start the game relying upon the respective clubs having taken measures to prevent crowd interference; both on the day and by education of the parents involved prior to the day, such as signing up to the code of practice.

In this instance, those measures failed; not just to the extent of crowd abuse of the referee, but to the extent of a criminal assault occasioning ABH by one parent upon a minor playing for the other team. This is not a minor failure. You don't know where the failure is, and until you do, and know that the failure has been dealt with, you cannot restart. The club claims that the parent acted out of character, but (i) you can't satisfy yourself (as opposed to being assured by the club whose systems have broken down to this extent) that that is true and perhaps more importantly, (ii) if that is true, then their assurances about the character of the other parents present are patently worthless.

This is a safeguarding issue. There is no indication in the story that any steps were taken pursuant to the safeguarding policy that the club is required by RFU regs to have; the notion that the police were called seems to be contradicted by the fact that the culprit was simply ejected from the venue. Any investigation by the police will be materially hampered by the delay in reporting it to them and the continuance of the game.

Stupidity happens, calm it down!!

No - stupidity happens, deal with it.

This isn't necessarily even an angry isolated idiot, in the case I saw it was just pure stupidity, the foot just went out, the regret and embarassment was immediate, every body else present was calmly horrified, the tripped player was fine, the facts were recorded, the idiot was led away to be dealt with, and the game continued.

Life then proceeded and a large ple of legal muck was tipped over the offender, end result - a lesson learnt.

And this is part of the problem. It wasn't "pure stupidity". Quite apart from any criminal intent on the part of your culprit, he shouldn't have been able to get that close to the pitch. Being calmly horrified is a start, but must be followed up by consideration of how it was allowed to happen and how to prevent any repetition.

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

I abandoned an U16 game a few years ago now.

A big brawl moved sideways to the side of the pitch where replacements and coaches joined the melee with grabbing, pushing, shoving etc- the punches had ended by this time (from what I saw). There were ropes held up with lamp irons but they got stretched/fell over in the furore.

I took the opportunity to calm things down (perhaps not long enough?) then spoke to the coaches. At this centre pitch pow-wow fingers started getting pointed (not at me but across my face) - as the coaching teams (really only one coach) boiled up again.

"Right that's it - I'm abandoning the game!" sez LLP.

I don't think any amount of swotting up prepares you for what decision you finally arrive at.

Same set of circumstances I'd abandon my game again - I think. Most disapointing was it was Mr Bisto's team and I never (got asked to) referee(d) them again.

The whole episode coloured my judgement with regard to refereeing on a Sunday. I think I've only done one since and that was less fun than my usual Saturday.

 

[crossref]

i don't think there is a 'default position' for an incident like this, a spectator tripping a player. It's really rare : for any individual ref is probably never going to encounter it even once.

that's not to say we shouldn't visualise how to handle it if it did happen.

for me, as a result of reading this thread I would be considerably more likely to abandon the game than before. but every incident is going to be different.

 

[thepercy]

A rope held up by a few sticks is a bit of a deterrent to entering the FoP, but not an absolute barrier. It can easily be pushed in, or stepped over. For those in the always abandon camp, would you always abandon for a pitch invader/streaker?