Competition is right but enjoyment is important too
I was talking to my mate Verney the other evening while we were having a game of skittles.
The conversation centered around competition for places in next week’s skittles team. It was agreed that we must play the best players in order to give ourselves the best chance of winning as the season reached its conclusion.
So what’s the Crown’s skittles team got to do with refereeing? Well the key word is competition. With 18 referees on the Premiership panel we all want to be reffing the ‘big’ games and as the football season comes to a close those big games get even bigger.
As I have mentioned before, every referee has his performance assessed and a mark awarded and it is this mark that contributes to who gets appointed to the next set of fixtures.
Competition among us is rife and this can only be good for improving standards as we all strive for that perfect performance. I had a game at Coventry last week and it proved to be a real battle against Wolves with me having to send a Wolves player off.
With the standard of professional refereeing so high (contrary to popular belief) I had to put in a tip-top performance to enhance my chances of a Premiership game the following Saturday, but alas I slipped up when I missed what can only be described as a ‘nailed on’ penalty claim by Coventry, leaving my assessor no choice but to down mark me and I found myself losing out on a Premiership game due to one mistake in a high octane game.
Why had I missed the penalty? Was I trying too hard for that perfect performance?
Competition in any sport has got to be good, as it improves standards and skills but sometimes I wonder if we place too much emphasis on perfection to the detriment of enjoyment?
My mate Veney went through a patch of not being able to hit a skittle as he was trying too hard, the thought of being dropped or ‘rested’ went through his mind. Sometimes it pays to relax and let your natural ability take over, remember the old saying ‘the cream has a habit of rising to the top!’
Competition is necessary but don’t lose sight of enjoyment.
