The frustration of the zebra – an official speaks

Officiating is a hot button topic across the sport in Britain for many reasons. Every week, a variety of men and women don the stripes to make sure the game we love is played safely and fairly.

People moan about the refs, that’s sport the world over but certainly this season there has, to my mind, been an increase of dissatisfaction with the level of officiating in British hockey from all sides.

As a rule, unless an official makes a proper howler, I try to not mention officiating in my game reports. Officials don’t win or lose games. However, an IHUK official has contacted me, frustrated with the public perception that the officials aren’t trying their best, the abuse that they’re receiving and also at the system at large.

They have asked to remain anonymous and the below is their thoughts and words and not those of myself or BOTW as an entity. The words below do not represent my personal views, nor do they represent the views of IHUK or the officiating section of IHUK, they only represent those of the one official who has written the below.

I have made 2 amendments to what was sent to me.

1. I have redacted a sentence where it revealed their location and would have revealed their identity.

2. I changed out swearwords for something more appropriate.

The rest is your conclusion to draw as the reader. I have agreed to publish the below to aid the discussion about how the sport in this country can improve both the standard of officiating and the support that the officials get both from the paying public at games as well as the players and clubs within the sport and the system at large. There is no game without them.

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The issues we’re having:

Lack of officials:

Covid saw the referee section haemorrhage officials as guys got their weekends back and figured they had better things to do than drive the length of the country getting yelled at (if you’re not the driver you could be out the house for 12+ hours and come home with £40, or less if you fell over). It has gotten better but we haven’t fully recovered. As it stands the higher league games get prioritised (EIHL do their own thing and are reluctant to use anyone outside of their established pool of officials) which means newer officials are getting bumped up, sometimes well beyond their ability. Alternatively, the experienced guy they were paired with for that game gets bumped up and their replacement is someone equally as wet behind the ears. In that situation you’ve got the blind leading the blind and a gongshow usually ensues, the refs get abuse hurled at them, they get pissed off and leave. Teams and the leagues want to keep costs down and the officiating budget is the easiest one to slash.

Cost:

It all boils down to who pays and how much. The leagues have agreed to cap the number of miles they’ll pay out for each game which limits who you can assign to each game. It also puts us into a situation (and unspoken acceptance) with officials up and down the country that your location matters just as much as your officiating ability.

The bit we don’t really talk about:

Love her or hate her Joy Johnston (Tottman) did a phenomenal job with the officiating programme and since her sudden departure things have definitely taken a step backwards. Less reported on is the number of other officials and performance coaches (and all of their experience) who followed her out the door. They’ve replaced some of the performance coaches who do their best but there are more games than coaches. We were also at a stage a few years ago where all the coaches were sorted and ready to go but they couldn’t claim any of their costs. Surprise surprise none of them went to go and supervise games that year. (BOTW NOTE: I am informed that the inability to claim costs was due to a lack of budget to do so)

I could talk about the collapse of the level system, the drop in standards across the board, the (mostly) end of the “right official right game” mantra etc but it won’t change the here and now and likely won’t get back to that unless someone with her commitment, drive and ability to achieve that is back in the RIC post. No disrespect to Rico (current head official Colin Davidson) or (Simon) Kirkham here, they’ve been dealt awful hands. I’m not saying that they aren’t trying to make things better at all. I suspect a number of barriers that they, and the rest of the managers, are up against are beyond their control.

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Before the publication of this piece, BOTW contacted the refereeing section of IHUK to offer them the right of reply. There was a very productive discussion with between them and myself about the issues raised above. They initially asked for some time to draft a response and I obliged. However ultimately they have elected not to respond in this piece. That is their right and I thank them and IHUK head official, Colin Davidson for their time and understanding regarding the publication of this piece.

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