The Refs In Specs: Your Go To Refereeing Podcast
“W**ker, Tw*t, should have gone to Specsavers”
I heard all of these things directed towards Simon Beck, one of the linesmen at the Chelsea vs Southampton game in October from the mouth of a lovely gentleman and his son a couple of seats down from me.
My friend Terry, an American who was sat beside me at his first ever Chelsea game, said to me after the match:
“So in America sometimes there’s a ‘these refs suck’ chant, or they’ll just boo the refs. But when I saw the whole crowd pointing and chanting w**nker, and then hearing the little kid next to me chanting, it was wild.”
This however is part of what life is like as an official, not just when you’re around 42,000 fans, but when the only people watching the game are the parents of the kids down at your local park.
My time as a Referee over the last five years has been eventful to say the least. But the abuse and the stress doesn’t stop me from doing it. In fact, I love it, and have many times contemplated if it is a career path I want to go down myself.
But as I’m out injured at the moment, I currently spend my weekends watching too much football. In particular, I look at the irregularities between refereeing decisions, as well as being the point of reference for many of my friends when there is a decision that they don’t quite understand.
And it’s for that reason, I’m starting a podcast, alongside Theo Lury, a man who is many things (including my brother), but most importantly, my refereeing mentor.
Each week we will be looking at the big refereeing moments from the weekend’s action alongside our excellent special guests and giving our view on proceedings not only as referees, but also as fans.
We hope to be the place for football fans to come and learn about why the ref has rightly (or wrongly!) made their decision.
We will also be telling some of our favourite stories from our time as referees and hopefully a few stories from some legendary referees of the game. I will tell you now that Theo’s stories in particular won’t disappoint.
But the highlight of the podcast will most likely be the list of the best and worst refereeing decisions of all-time we are planning to create.
Each week, our Special Guest will pitch their view on either the worst or best refereeing decision of all time, before we decide where they will come on our epic list.
We are excited to announce the beginning of our podcast!
We are:
Follow us on twitter here: https://twitter.com/TheRefsInSpecs
