Abuse at Sunday League level football.

The institutions of English football begin from the roots of the football pyramid, however due to the vast amount of verbal abuse directed towards officials, the beautiful game is on a steady decline at the lowest level. Barnsley Sunday league referee Kevin Wagstaffe spoke to me about the issues regarding abuse. “For me personally it’s not been that bad because I’ve been reffing for years now, so know most of the lads that play, so for me it’s not that bad but for young upcoming refs I’ve seen it can be really bad.” As more referees take a step away from the game, there is a real lack of young hungry refs wanting to take to this side of the game, with abuse coming from all angles, “You get it from everywhere, people playing are always the worst, but you get people on the sides like managers or subs, or even people nothing to do with the clubs just giving it out,” said Kevin. Barnsley Sunday league used to be the home of over 40 different clubs with roughly 80 different referees wanting to officiate games, however now there are just over 20 teams across two leagues, with a serious drop in numbers of referees. “There’s always been a bit of abuse but never as much as now, and it’s taken its toll on the leagues in Barnsley, there used to be about 80 refs ready for every weekend, now there’s 6 regular refs including myself.” There is a clear lack of respect for the younger generations of referees, however giving out early sanctions is the best way to combat this, says Kevin, “If you give out early free kicks and yellows, it stops players straight away, they don’t go in for stupid challenges or run their mouth. The level of discipline is there from the get-go.” Younger, inexperienced officials fall victim to abuse more because of this. The beautiful game is on its knees at grass roots level for a number of external factors, but players don’t help themselves, giving out verbal abuse to the people who make Sunday mornings possible. Football is for everybody, no matter the age, gender, or level of play.