The following article was published on thebigtip.com.au on 27 May 2010
When I was 14 a friend of mine asked if I wanted to become an umpire. We could play football on Saturday and umpire junior games on Sundays. And earn some extra pocket money. The next Friday night I was down at ‘umpire training’, a collection of outcast nerds seriously practicing positioning, bouncing and backwards running. The following Sunday I was umpiring an under 11’s practice match, more nervous than I’d ever been before a football game. It didn’t occur to me then, but now it is obvious that the league needed umpires. Quickly.
My father drove me to the ground bemused. Having watched over 100 games of me playing, he was not particularly keen on spending a few hours at a suburban ground watching his son umpire. ‘Good holding the ball decision in the last quarter’ was not a comment he really wanted to make. And how would he respond if he ran into someone he knew? ‘Yes, I’m watching my son umpire’. ‘Oh but yes he still plays’. Originally, umpiring junior games was quite a rewarding experience. It was enlightening to see a game from a different viewpoint, to restrain myself from going for the ball and from turning my head to the umpire when I saw an infringement. And after I realised that I was that umpire, I found the job quite easy. Most players with significant football experience have a natural reaction to an obvious infringement. As an umpire, you simply have to blow the whistle and pay the free kick. There is no reason to think. The free kick is very obvious.
Within a year I was umpiring finals and Grand Finals, even umpiring games of players older than me. My strategy towards abusive players and supporters was simple. I maintained an ice cold demeanour, maintained consistency with my decisions, and accepted the fact that most people at the game accepted the necessity of having me without liking me. When a player shook my hand after a game and said ‘Thanks ump’ I was quietly satisfied, but I yearned not for acceptance from players. If no player or supporter or team manager ever spoke to me I was similarly content, and I took for granted mindless abuse from the boundary line. As games became more intense I thrived on it. If a player opposed one of my decisions I named the free kick, set the mark, and gave no further explanation. I rarely paid 15 metre penalties unless every person at the ground expected it, and I worked on the simple notion of paying the least amount of free kicks as possible. I was, for the above reasons, a highly acceptable and exemplary umpire. I rarely smiled, and I only raised my voice to call ‘play on’ to the players and ‘yours Jacko’ to my fellow umpire dawdling further down the ground.
As a player I chose to maintain a constant dialogue with the umpires, constantly critiquing their decisions, suggesting the reasons for their mistakes and generally and specifically denigrating their existence at all times. When I began to umpire I didn’t curb this dialogue. I simply accepted that I was a player on Saturday and an umpire on Sunday.
It is fair to say that the contemporary AFL umpire is the complete opposite to me. In the AFL, the umpires maintain the dialogue, even though most players, and more recently television viewers, are quite sick of their voices. Formerly, the only reason for an umpire to raise their voice was to call ‘touched, play on’ and ‘no 10, play on’. That was how I operated, and otherwise preserved my vocal chords for abusing the umpires while playing. The current AFL umpire yells constantly at players, in a pathetic, condescending, school teacher like way. ‘Walk away, stay out of it, no opportunity’. An umpires authority is in his whistle and the righteousness of his decisions, not in his voice. Calling players by their first names, nick names, or calling them mate, is totally unnecessary. But the problems with AFL umpires and their lack of popularity, which apparently trickles to suburban and junior football, is not with their attempts at mateship with players, despite how annoying this is. It is, undoubtebly, with the decisions they make, and with the administrators who advise the umpires on how to make decisions.
The disgraceful state of adjudication in the AFL is reflected in the growing exasperation of commentators on radio and tv, particularly the latter. The week after umpire appreciation round, one Fox Sports commentator commented that this week they could say what they felt, the obvious meaning being that commentators were requested to be positive towards umpires in the previous round. Dennis Cometti’s frustration is hidden with humour. Ever the professional, Cometti regularly queries decisions by calling in the advice of his expert commentators. He is simply bewildered by the current state of the rules, as are many football viewers.
A few years ago, the AFL announced a new interpretation of the push in the back rule. Although push in the back, especially in a marking contest, was a difficult rule to accurately police, there was no obvious problem with it as it previously existed. But someone thought it necessary to change it anyway, forcing umpires to make massively unpopular decisions and raising umpire hatred levels considerably, flying directly in the face of the AFL’s attempts to increase umpire respect. Any spectator that saw Matthew Richardson’s mark and goal to (not) beat Carlton, only for a free and 50 to be paid against him, knows the cruelty and sheer injustice of this interpretation. Players have for the most part adjusted to this rule, but it is still not the right rule. The push in the back interpretations most worrying legacy is how it began a trend towards regular re-interpretations of other rules. Some are introduced pre season with a dvd. Others are introduced mid season, suddenly and without warning, undermining any consistency umpires might strive towards. After Barry Hall’s headlock demo on Saturday, one commentator suggested that this violent incident (don’t the fans just love it!) led to stricter enforcement of rules on the Sunday. The idea that umpires could possibly adjust their interprations and adjudication from one day to the next, in the same round, seriously undermines the players and coaches, who do their utmost to strategise and play within the rules.
As mentioned in these pages last year, the interpretation of ‘holding the ball’ needs serious and urgent attention. Here is the current interpretation (by current I mean the last month): if a player is on his knees and the ball comes into his possession, then he is tackeled by three opponents, deprived of an opportunity to get rid of the ball and smothered to the ground, he has made the mistake and will give away a free kick. Even if his opponents are blatantly holding the ball to him, it is his fault. This current interpretation has every commentator in the country biting his or her tongue in bewilderment. One player had his hands stretched above his head, but was called for holding the ball, though other players were holding it. This ruling is frustrating enough, but the fact that it has only started being enforced in the last month smacks of an umpiring department clearly changing rules on its feet.
The extreme enforcement of 50 metre penalties is also creating massive discontent amongst the AFL community. Ryan Griffen was paid a 50 metre penalty against him because his 20 metre grid iron pass was not sufficiently accurate. Other players are paid 50 metres because they are caught in the extremely unspecific ‘protected zone’, even though they had no time whatsoever to vacate this zone (Leon Davis last Friday). Other players returned the ball to an opponent in a loopy trajectory and were paid a 50, though this loopy returning was acceptable from rounds 1-8. If the ball was drilled at the other player they may have given away 50 for returning it too violently. Best just to hand deliver it next time.
As Cometti joked, players next week will spend training practicing their return throws to prevent giving away 50. Given the amount of 50 metre penalites that result in goals, it is not such a silly idea. Arguing a point with an umpire is a silly idea. A free kick for ‘abuse’, paid twice last Friday night, has rarely, if ever, been given in an AFL game. So why was it suddenly implemented in the biggest match of the year, when tempers were running hot because of the number of umpiring mistakes being made? It is a question that no one will ever ask. It is often said that the stream of umpiring mistakes, new interpretations, and inconsistencies will cost a team a premiership one day. Bullodgs fans who witnessed the moronic out of bounds decision during last years preliminary final might believe that day has already occurred. Whatever. Disrespect and contempt towards umpires is a national sport. Breaking the trend is an admirable pursuit, but the AFL has only itself to blame for it being so bloody hard.
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