A damp Wednesday evening

Well what an interesting start to my mid week endeavours. Was officiating a military against a Prem side A team in Hampshire. Arrived in daylight, pitch looks great, small stadium ideal. Gets dark. Doesn’t get light! Floodlights fail. Oops. Much embarrassment – its a civilian contract so none of the millions (ok, 10) of Royal Engineers on site can do a darn thing about it (legally!.) So we jump across the road and to the Army’s own training lights, kick a game off the better pitch and away we go 20 mins late, just as the heavens open. Great!

Can’t remember the last time I actually got wet refereeing. Strange that eh!?!

Game started interestingly with both sides scoring but then visitors ran away with it. Slopey pitch, dodgy lights and torrential rain didn’t help matters and it got a tad scrappy. Pen count high against home side – they just stopped listening. Mainly for hands in ruck/tackler holding on.  Got a bit slack at start of second half and then had to get back on top of it, get closer, get more verbal, but it didn’t seem to help. at least I recognised I needed to switch back on – a failing Ive done before and suffered as a result of not spotting it.  Progress – however small!  Had one of the home side in the bin, but it should have happened 2 pens earlier. Not sure it would have helped though. But I’ll never know that.

No major issues from anyone afterwards so a job well done.  And at least I avoided another evening of grouting!