Last week's tales of amusing incidents from the 1950's and 1960's generated a few more from the archives.
A referee tells the tale that he was once given pre-match instructions from the home club to make his way to the village pub before the game as there were no changing facilities at the ground. He was also informed that as the football field was down a track from the pub, referees were always provided with a bike so they could cycle to the field, though players, would have to walk.
A club official would look after the bike during the match, but on some occasions though, when the home team lost, the club official, nor the bike could be seen.
I have also been informed of some incidents in America from a referee who regularly goes over there to officiate in their junior tournaments during the summer.
At one match it started to rain very heavily just before kick off and the referee came onto the field holding an umbrella to keep himself dry. He called the captains to the centre circle for the toss up, and to everyone's surprise he started the game, still holding the umbrella aloft and he continued to referee the match with the umbrella, until it stopped raining.
A photograph of the referee holding the umbrella appeared in the newspapers the following day, needless to say he was nicknamed the Umbrella Ref.
Another story from America involves a referee's Assessor. Again it was a very wet day and the Assessor was soaked through, as was his clipboard and notes about the referee's performance.
The Assessor looked around for some shelter from the heavy rain and the only thing available was a portaloo besides the pitch. As drastic action was required, he opened the portaloo door, and sat inside to watch the rest of the game through the open door, keeping dry in the process.
His only comment after the match was that h'd been inconvenienced and it had been a crap game.
As usual, you can contact me with your amusing or unusual match incidents by logging onto the D'ton Referees' Society website, darlingtonreferees.freeserve.co.uk or by writing to me at Referee's Notebook, Local Heroes, Sports Desk, The Northern Echo, Priestgate Darlington.
George Cornforth.
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