Boooooooooooooooooooooo

Photo courtesy markstivers.com

So there I was at the Revolution match the other night when they again seemed to implode near the end. At a point in the match there was a call that went against the Revolution, and a chorus of "Boooooo's" went out. My son who I was with at the match joined in and started to yell "boo" as well.

A brief yet interesting conversation broke out between us at that point.

PK: Why are you booing?
Jr.: Because everyone else is.

PK: Do you know why they are booing?
Jr.: No. Maybe because of the call the referee made.

PK: What was that call?
Jr.: I dunno. Handball?

PK: No. Did you see what happened?
Jr. : Nope.

PK: Then why are you booing?

From there just go to the top and repeat the loop a couple of times and you will get the flavor.

Point is that looking around not many people had much of an idea what had actually happened and how the referee handled it just right, regardless (irregardless in some parts of the country) of the reaction from the fan(atics).

Being a referee take a pretty thick hide, and an ability to filter the right protests to be considered for action. Everything else can be passed off as just noise.

Take heart dear refereeing friends, the next time you hear a chorus of complaints from a large group, it just might be because a group of lemmings just jumped off a cliff together. If you are doing your best, and think you got the call right, keep going. If you follow the lemmings, you take the chance of having your match go off a cliff, just like they did.