2013 Zone League 3 Thread

[AVB]

Two good tough games of football. Ressies- Cooks Hill far too good.

Firsts was pretty even pretty devoed to drop 2 points with 3 mins to go.

All this overshadowed by the events off the field in my opinion. We rock up to be told that our change room is a damountable building that has no power/lights or the women's toilet.
We then get told that there is no referee so what do we want to do about it? My understanding is that it'd be an unwritten rule that if we have no refs that the home team organises the refereeing. That's certainly how we'll be doing at Beresfield. After being told that they didn't have anyone, our 55 year old manager stepped up and did it, but not before being told that he'd have to referee the first 20 mins without a whistle. He asks for Cooks Hill to offer two linesmen of which one takes the line nearest to the benches and we get told by them to get one of our first graders to run the other as they didn't want there's out there. Ended up with 2 linesman and Cooks Hill win comfortably.

On to first grade, Cooks Hill find a bloke to referee but doesn't have a watch so someone on their bench presumably has a timepiece. So about 5 minutes in we realise that their reserve grade team pretty much get dressed and come back out and sit on the bench with their coach and substitutes and drink beer with their first grade coach while he coaches, which in my years of football I've never seen and to me it looks amateurish. I'm all for a beer as some guys on here would know but seriously that looks ridiculous. And frustrating as I'm trying to see the game and there's 10-15 blokes standing on the line. Then all of a sudden some woman presumably from out of the crowd just trots out to stand on the halfway flag post, drinking wine and chatting away to the Cooks Hill bench, I personally didn't see a duty officer in sight but I might've missed them. What tops the day off was our timekeeper from the Cooks Hill bench didn't know/wasn't told that first grade is 45 mins a half so we played 40's.

Now I don't know if I'm being a whinger but in my opinion we need to get rid of that shit from our game. And I don't know if you're directly involved Retro Jet but if it was me I'd be having a word with the organisation down there because that just isn't good enough.

I went and watched cooks hill v Bero today and i'm not a member of either club.

In my opinion, Bero deserved to loose both grades. They lost reserves and fairly, and in first grade cooks hill was the better team 70% of the match and conceded two goals to a back pass and practically an own goal.

as for the off field events, I agree to some in some regards and in other I don't..

As a previous administrator at another club, I can emphasise with Cooks Hill over the demountable. The "Away Sheds" are not large enough or something so they had to bring in an extra demountable for the use of the away team. before criticism is thrown, can anyone think of a better solution?

The referee situation is unfortunate for all involved, My understanding is the referee pool has dropped from somewhere around 150 to close to 80. I'm sure cooks hills games are all registered with the federation and therefore if a referee is not appointed it is unfortunate but unavoidable. It is the home teams responsibility to organise officials but at this level (where referees are appointed only if all other grades are filled) I feel abit of sportsman ship is in order. Yes your 55 year old manager did the centre but my understanding was cooks hill organised linesman (Yes, all 4 linesman today came from cooks hill it seems, despite your instance they refused) for both games plus a centre for firsts at short notice? surely you can't be upset when your asked to contribute that much?

AS for the first grade referee, certainly i agree that there is no excuse for taking on the role without a watch, as referee you are sole time keeper and that is disgraceful. If Cooks Hills was at fault I am unsure and if so certainly needs addressing.

As for your last point about drinking on the side lines, Obviously this is never acceptable and cooks hill needs to better handle their bench.


I will however finish by saying that this is ZL3 and in this grade referees are not guaranteed at any ground and every team should be willing to help out where ever possible to fill the gaps, both away and at home. As for the beers thing, lets be realistic, you guys play 6th division in Newcastle and the social aspect of the game should well and turely be encouraged. However i agree with Nanwob99 when he says drinking on the bench with fans and players alike is not on. the technical; area should be respected