Last weekend I worked on 3 games in 2 days. As a female official I suffered abuse and discrimination, got soaking wet on all but the first game. It was cold and muddy. I didn't get fed at any of the games. Did a 200 mile round trip for one of them. Barely get paid enough to cover my travel. Then you get idiots like this that think that the abuse they dish out on a public forum is acceptable. Not only do they think they are entitled to vent in such a manner but they fail to realise the impact this has on the wider RL so called supporting public and how they think they are entitled to vent their frustrations on the easiest target they can find.

The reality is that I did 3 games in 2 days last weekend and I'm scheduled to do 2 tomorrow. We have a shortage of officials this year due to eveyone moving to a summer season and the fact that it is so difficult to recruit due to the abuse given. I had a friend abandon a game 2 weeks ago due to homophobic abuse and a man refusing to leave the field, following him round chanting it. For me the reality is that I now have a zero tollerance approach. My cards are in my pocket for a reason and I'm not afraid to use them wether that's a spectator, a player or a club official. You wouldn't expect me to come up and abuse you in your place of work then don't do it to us!

Makes me laugh at how quickly players criticise referees so quickly and yet they act like scolded little children, whining away about fairness whenever supporters offering similar instant criticism. Perhaps there's a lesson for players here.

By calling him a retard do you mean?

There are plenty of incompetent players taking to our countries fields every week. If they were good they would have stands full of people watching, as it is most are poor and play on back fields and get back field refs.

In the same manner as the abuse refs get from numptie speccies?

Or where you stand is it more a case of: "I say referee, old chap, I thought your decision not to award us a penalty was rather sub-standard what?"

...and what makes you think he is qualified to judge? The majority of people who make these comments and act in such a way have only a rudimentary knowledge of the game and certainly no understanding of what a referee or touch judge does. A few weeks ago we had Mark Aston complaining that the near side touch judge missed his player taking out the kicker late and was quite rightly sin binned. His main complaint was that the near side tough judge didn't come on for it or see it. That's because the near side touch judge did his job and followed the ball where the far side one cleared the kicker and watched for offences in back play. When someone as high profile as this doesn't know or understand what we are doing when we are doing a job what hope do we have because the general public will always believe someone like him over those of us who spend out time doing the job. We are all human and make mistakes that's the reality of it but we do not go out to make mistakes on purpose. Thierry has been dropped twice this season for miscounting tackles as it is such a basic part of the game but how many players this year have been dropped for knocking the ball on, missing a tackle or making a bad pass all of which are basic areas of the game that professional players should get right. People talk about fairness and consistency but all they want is fairness and consistency by their own biased standards. I could go on with dozens of instances of supporters getting on the refs back for what they perceive to be mistakes only to be shown later that the ref had in fact got the correct call but you never hear of anyone apologising to the official for their mistake in getting it wrong.

That's a classic.