As many of you will know, this past weekend I had the honour of going to the World Cup in Frankfurt as an assistant referee. Although I was initially disappointed not to be given any games as a head referee, refereeing under a variety of different people has given me new perspectives on refereeing, how I can improve myself, and where the UK refereeing scene is as a whole. Over the weekend I refereed over fifteen games, including the final for which I was a goal referee (or as with most finals, essentially an assistant referee who was just stood behind the hoops). I saw most of the previously established quidditch nations play, and worked with referees of many nationalities. I'd like to give shout-outs to Logan Davies and Jill Staniec, from Australia and Canada respectively, and Erin Mallory, Chris LeCompte, Brian Nakasha, and Toby March from the US. My thoughts below are mainly formed from working with the above people, and I really believe that the UK referees will benefit from having seen them all in action.
1. Not insisting on well-marked pitches has damaged our knowledge and ability to enforce boundary rules. Personally I have always known that I'm not good at boundary rules, in any edition of the rulebook, but that is not an excuse for not sitting down and learning them. Over the course of the weekend there were many cases where a bludger went out of bounds, and the head referee rightly needed me as an assistant to designate the nearest unarmed beater to go and retrieve it. This was a rule I knew, albeit vaguely, though I can't honestly say I'd ever used it in the UK (especially not and been listened to by the players in question). Most people know that a quaffle going off the hard boundary behind the hoops is a turnover, but the American referees were also on point when it came to turnovers at the sides of the pitch. The main thing I noticed was how quickly the call came, where other referees would need a moment to think about it. I don't know if this was experience, the fact that they were some of the top referees in the world, or just brain speed, but it was very impressive and something the UK need to work on. Having marked hard boundaries will help, because otherwise the calls will be made inconsistently and I certainly feel weird making hard boundary calls when there isn't actually one there.
2. The procedure for dealing with fouling players can be improved. Firstly, hand-signals are greatly underused in the UK. They communicate what has been done across the field without the need for shouting, which means the teams' subs benches can see what the player did, and this may go some way to stopping grievances with referees caused by miscommunication. Secondly, some referees took a couple of seconds to walk the fouling player to the penalty box, where they then informed the scorekeeper of the foul they committed, and also giving themselves the time to have a short conversation with the player explaining what they did if necessary. It barely added any time onto the game - play can't be resumed until the player is in the penalty box anyway - and meant everything was a lot clearer for all of those involved.
3. Positioning can be far more exaggerated. Americans go big on a lot of things, and one of the main things I learnt from the weekend was where to position yourself as a referee when it comes to pile-ups. Basically, you can be closer. Be only a couple of steps away from them, make the players know that you are there. Yes, there can be a lot of sprinting to get there in the first place, but what's wrong with that? Referees have to be fit too to keep up with the players, the same with most team sports. And once there, the exaggerated squat over them is actually far more effective than I first gave the idea credit for. There were several instances where I was running after bludger play, and if two beaters were wrestling on the floor for the ball, I would get in close. The players would see me, and suddenly it was very clear that they were hyper-attentive to where their limbs were, making sure whatever they were doing was legal because otherwise I would see it. Head referees did the same thing for quaffle play, wherever the pile-up happened. They were also generally closer to quaffle play, though the best referees in the UK position themselves similarly in that respect.
4. Players calling for brooms-down for minor injuries were ignored a lot more. Often UK referees call for brooms-down because people in the subs box - or indeed in the crowd - continually shout, even if the injury is just a rolled ankle. Most referees know the rule (only stopping if it is in the way of play or a head injury) but don't enforce it that way, because of pressure from players. I've certainly had grief from people who felt they had been ignored, even if they were miles from play and ultimately not further harmed by the additional few seconds. However, the US referees in particular were good at just letting these words roll off them, not allowing a small injury to break up play unnecessarily. This meant games ran a lot quicker - indeed, keeping a tournament to time with 45 minute gameslots is no mean feat.
5. Overall, the top-end of UK refereeing is not too far off the best of the US refereeing. I think it is safe to assume that the best US head referees are the best head referees in the world - they have had far more years of experience and time to improve, and also deal with a higher level game on average. Most UK referees have under 2 years of experience, at maximum around 3 or 4. This shocked the US referees when we told them! This makes them a good comparison point, and I'd say we're only a season of learning behind them, for our referees who regularly have finals. The points we have to improve on are minor, and I certainly felt like I was honestly respected whenever I was on pitch under an American head referee, and like I was certainly good enough to be there with them. The finals referee team was heavily stacked with UK referees and rightly so - all of us had proven ourselves in the preceding matches. I believe that when we reach the next World Cup in 2018, wherever that is held, the only differences between the referees will be style, with each having their own preferences for small things but nothing substantial. Ultimately parity in refereeing is coming much at the same speed as parity of play between countries.
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