MUD-NESS
Picture yourself, standing broken in the mud as the rain turns the field of play into the setting of an entirely coincidental tribute to the Somme. You lumber forward towards the enemy lines, sucked down by the parasitic earth as behind you artillery pumps aimless slugs into nothingness.
Alas you’re not in the Somme, where escape is only a bullet away; you’re up against the elements, a referee with a bias the size of Russia and that artillery is your beleaguered left-back Jacob ineffectually slapping a ball that more greatly resembles a sack three feet. This, friends, is the story of the Langwith 4s.
Langwith 4s 8-4 James 5s – I ended the last column by dooming our two fixtures versus the James teams. I was in many ways pleasantly surprised. For this game I was able to finally call on my preferred keeper, UYHC’s Matthew Guy, and he rewarded my patience by conceding three goals against the nine men James were able to field against us.
Guy was on his way to becoming an early candidate for my Bonfire Night effigy but, before I’d even shaved my kindling, he was outfield (having swapped his gloves with my winger) and hammering in a brace of long range goals. Resurgent we swept forward and despite gaining a man in the second half, James were unable to resist our tide.
Langwith 4s 3-4 James 4s – The other James team would not be so forgiving. We started at a canter, pinning the men in black back and rattling them with the dangerous howitzer-throws of Alex “Sheeran” Braim. By late in the second-half my boys were 3-1 up and cruising… towards disaster!
An unfortunate goal from a corner changed everything. Suddenly James gained a predatory instinct and like a rabbit, stunned by the beams of an oncoming Jaguar, we were simultaneously flattened and torn apart. A penalty and a slick finish from close range all but ended our resistance, the referee finishing the job by unjustly ruling out a last-gasp equaliser.
Langwith 4s 3-4 Vanburgh 4s – Gutted from the previous week’s late disappointment, I was keen to get us back on our feet against a sub-par Vanbrugh side.
I’ve promised myself not to write too much about this game because it would be in danger of becoming a rant. Instead I’ve chosen to sum up the experience of playing the purples, in what was essentially a good substitute for a spa treatment (read: mud bath), in haiku form:
Ball was a flat sack,
Referee was foes’ captain,
Need a man say more?
And breathe. This had been a testing few weeks for the valiant Langwith 4s, and in more ways than one. We come towards the close of the first season with fixtures against Halifax and Constantine in sight, and once again the anticipation of the next Langwith victory rises!
Picture yourself, standing broken in the mud as the rain turns the field of play into the setting of an entirely coincidental tribute to the Somme. You lumber forward towards the enemy lines, sucked down by the parasitic earth as behind you artillery pumps aimless slugs into nothingness.
Alas you’re not in the Somme, where escape is only a bullet away; you’re up against the elements, a referee with a bias the size of Russia and that artillery is your beleaguered left-back Jacob ineffectually slapping a ball that more greatly resembles a sack three feet. This, friends, is the story of the Langwith 4s.
Langwith 4s 8-4 James 5s – I ended the last column by dooming our two fixtures versus the James teams. I was in many ways pleasantly surprised. For this game I was able to finally call on my preferred keeper, UYHC’s Matthew Guy, and he rewarded my patience by conceding three goals against the nine men James were able to field against us.
Guy was on his way to becoming an early candidate for my Bonfire Night effigy but, before I’d even shaved my kindling, he was outfield (having swapped his gloves with my winger) and hammering in a brace of long range goals. Resurgent we swept forward and despite gaining a man in the second half, James were unable to resist our tide.
Langwith 4s 3-4 James 4s – The other James team would not be so forgiving. We started at a canter, pinning the men in black back and rattling them with the dangerous howitzer-throws of Alex “Sheeran” Braim. By late in the second-half my boys were 3-1 up and cruising… towards disaster!
An unfortunate goal from a corner changed everything. Suddenly James gained a predatory instinct and like a rabbit, stunned by the beams of an oncoming Jaguar, we were simultaneously flattened and torn apart. A penalty and a slick finish from close range all but ended our resistance, the referee finishing the job by unjustly ruling out a last-gasp equaliser.
Langwith 4s 3-4 Vanburgh 4s – Gutted from the previous week’s late disappointment, I was keen to get us back on our feet against a sub-par Vanbrugh side.
I’ve promised myself not to write too much about this game because it would be in danger of becoming a rant. Instead I’ve chosen to sum up the experience of playing the purples, in what was essentially a good substitute for a spa treatment (read: mud bath), in haiku form:
Ball was a flat sack,
Referee was foes’ captain,
Need a man say more?
And breathe. This had been a testing few weeks for the valiant Langwith 4s, and in more ways than one. We come towards the close of the first season with fixtures against Halifax and Constantine in sight, and once again the anticipation of the next Langwith victory rises!
HOR-REF-IC
College football is one the most popular fixtures of the sporting week at the University of York and is enjoyed by nearly 500 members of the student population. However, to say that the experience has been universally enjoyed in this last term of matches would be somewhat disingenuous.
This is not to state the obvious, in that some teams, the Vanbrughs and Derwents of this world, have been successful, whereas poor Wentworth and Goodricke have been trashed on a regular basis. Rather it is the case that the whole system has been let down by a categorical failure to provide adequate refereeing for the sport many so love.
Since the beginning of term around three games a week have suffered from having no referee and have required for substitutes from both teams to be drafted in to replace them. Whilst this may sound a fair solution, it inevitably leads to one side gaining an unfair advantage as the game becomes stretched in the latter stages.
This, coupled with a shambolic quality of officiating in general (very few referees are qualified) has led to controversy and upset across all four divisions as penalties, cards and offsides are handed-out and held-back with little or no pattern or reason, unless of course it’s your team.
As a captain of a college team myself, one particularly affected by this scandal, I can speak on a personal level as to how this has shattered the morale of my players.
In the last three weeks we have lost three matches. None of these games were refereed by an entirely neutral party and in each and every match the result was stolen from us by biased decisions.
In our most recent fixture, versus the league leaders Halifax, we were 2-1 up at half-time, following one of the most clinical performances by my team all season. By the end of the game we found ourselves on the end of a 5-2 defeat, the turning point of which came with less than 20 minutes to go, when my player conceded a penalty for which there was no case. This was of course facilitated by the referee, a close friend of the Halifax captain.
College Football Activator Sam Lock and Dave Washington, YUSU’s College Sport Officer, are aware of the problems and have already spoken to captains about ways to improve the system. The suggestion is that, rather than being assigned to colleges, refereeing slots are assigned to individual teams who can then be punished (by points deductions or otherwise) for failing to provide a ref.
Though this harsher solution shows promise, merely getting referees to turn up for the games is only half the battle; if those turning up aren’t of sufficient quality then the scope for controversy lingers on.