What's your worst nightmare?

[tim White]

I missed a red card incident whilst being assessed on an exchange; Huge kick out of defence from number 10 -I check for late tackle on him and then look to where the ball is just about to land when I heard an almighty thud/smack and OOOOOH! from the crowd behind me. Both number 10 and opposition 6 are in a heap -but only 6 is moving. Excused missing the late, late, late tackle but marked down for not spotting the niggle that lead up to it. It would seem I was the only person at the ground watching play, everyone else could see it coming they said.

[Dickie E]

I missed a red card incident whilst being assessed on an exchange; Huge kick out of defence from number 10 -I check for late tackle on him and then look to where the ball is just about to land when I heard an almighty thud/smack and OOOOOH! from the crowd behind me. Both number 10 and opposition 6 are in a heap -but only 6 is moving. Excused missing the late, late, late tackle but marked down for not spotting the niggle that lead up to it. It would seem I was the only person at the ground watching play, everyone else could see it coming they said.

what did the AR say? Oh sorry, forgot you're not allowed to have ARs

[timmad]

Fred S who is one of the ref appointers for the region overheard my conversation. He said not to worry, he will get a mate to come and fix it whilst I ref the match, which he did. What a star Fred is! Managed to get to work in time and had a great match despite being on a massive pitch which was nearly square!

I can confirm that Fred was the ideal club contact for refs and was most encouraging to me on a couple of (nervous) early outings.

[CrouchTPEngage]

I've marked a PK incorrectly. Actually I think I almost did it twice. It happened just after half-time and the team shirts were close in colour. I guess my brain forgets that teams have changed ends at half-time. Hence I now doulble check any scores which occur just after half-time :-) Top tip !

[ctrainor]

When I started almost 20 years ago it was just a matter of buying a whistle and say you'll give it a go.
In my first game it was my old club Vickers 2ndXV v Keswick 2nd XV.
I was probably given this as there was a history of good fair contests between the clubs.
Anyway it turned out to be a cracker free scoring end to end stuff with the lead changing hands many times.
I had been advised to mark my scores down P, T, DG, C and add them up at the end.
Anyway about 2 minuted to go I award a penalty near touch on half way line to visitors.
Skipper asks me "What's the score Ref"? Well, I didn't actually know so quickly did the maths and said, "you're 2 behind"
"OK we'll go for goal" They got it and 2 minutes later game was over and when I blew the whistle both sides cheered a victory.
When I did the maths again, the home side had won by one point.
Lesson learned, fortunately nothing at stake but clear winner of Dick of the day!

[crossref]

When I started almost 20 years ago it was just a matter of buying a whistle and say you'll give it a go.
In my first game it was my old club Vickers 2ndXV v Keswick 2nd XV.
I was probably given this as there was a history of good fair contests between the clubs.
Anyway it turned out to be a cracker free scoring end to end stuff with the lead changing hands many times.
I had been advised to mark my scores down P, T, DG, C and add them up at the end.
Anyway about 2 minuted to go I award a penalty near touch on half way line to visitors.
Skipper asks me "What's the score Ref"? Well, I didn't actually know so quickly did the maths and said, "you're 2 behind"
"OK we'll go for goal" They got it and 2 minutes later game was over and when I blew the whistle both sides cheered a victory.
When I did the maths again, the home side had won by one point.
Lesson learned, fortunately nothing at stake but clear winner of Dick of the day!

great story

[OB..]

There's an (apocryphal?) story about a referee who awarded a PK, and when the captain started to complain, he marched them back 10m. And again. And again. At which point the other captain said "Excuse me Sir, but you are marching us in the wrong direction."

I was assessing a new referee at a low level game when he ordered "Scrum Green". The Red captain looked at the Blue captain and said "Which colour green do you think he means?"

A novice referee was reading her pre-match brief from notes, and had obviously written the instructions down literally, because after briefing everyone, she said, "And now I can get rid of the backs".