Over the last few days I have found myself reflecting on my umpiring performance last weekend.
I think we knew in advance that it wasn't going to be the easiest game of hockey.
Early on I had to green card their number 44 for dissent, knowing that on a previous occasion when I had given her a green card following this she had behaved much better.
The real issue was the number 13 I think it was at the back.
There seemed to be an issue with her in the second half particularly trying to assist Rachel in her umpiring. This number 13, who I know is a qualified umpire, out of my vision on the far side of the field was clearly getting in an altercation with Lucy. All I really heard was her raised voice swearing loudly. In dealing with this I gave her a yellow card and the bit I'm a bit worried about is when I gave lucy a Green card. I had told the number 13 that the card was for bad language,- how then did I justify Lucy's green card? I think in the end it was to demonstrate to the Plymouth Valley team that I was trying to be fair. So how does that work? Given that the game was always likely to be difficult as an umpire my priority was to keep the game flowing and moving along with as little incident as possible. In this context I think the most minor sanction of a green card is demonstrate to the opposition that I recognised that the incident may have been contributed to by Lucy's play in some way. I don't think at that heated moment that a talking to would have been recognised in the same way. True, I didn't see what happened, (and why on earth didn't I ask Rachel if she'd seen it?) but we have to recognise that a green card is of so little consequence.
Learning point for me is to try to keep calm in this heated situation and keep rational.
