Not defending phipps who seems a total kn*b but please don't throw cretin in as an insult.As a teacher you obviously know that its a medical condition caused by an undiagnosed lack of thyroxin at birth.I.e cretinism and is not a very p.c. insult! rant over ta.

Happy to oblige. Is "moron" sufficiently unoffensively offensive ?

Just going on to the serious aspect and the issues Tim2 has alluded to.

Its all good and well sending the parents off or to a suitable distance away, I have done that many a time only to be confronted when we get to the changing rooms for said person to have a second go at me, report goes in and the model nowadays is for whenever a coach, spectator or any playing staff get dismissed is for the rest of the club including people who probably weren't at the game to write letters in saying this, that and the other didn't happen and the punishments don't match what happened as its basically 1 report vs many. Now this is just on a minority of cases but a significant minority and im sick of seeing my colleagues dragged through this. Its not usually the players who are the issue so the humourous post about running from spotty schoolboys is a bit off the mark, it's usually the parents who are bigger than us.

Also from a development point of view, if senior officials like me and Tim2 (polite term for old gits) are getting fed up of behaviour standands, how can you expect us to blood new junior officials into the game into the swearing and personal abuse. This leads into the threads on here about the quality of officials not being good enough maybe there are some excellent officials out there but they are discouraged from taking the course and going down the route from what they see us go through. I have to remind them it gets easier the higher you go, when you get to Championship level it just becomes noise and its not personal most the time, it comes with the uniform. Unfortunately if you don't have the numbers, you don't get the strength.

Also because we don't have the strength or organisation the junior game suffers in terms of match official, I was just speaking to one of my colleagues who is off to Australia for studying and everything from U15s above is like Championship level here, they have a ref, two tjs who have communications kit (which works) and a timekeeper / scorekeeper. You look at our U15s games and its some poor old soul by himself

One of my kids plays RU. I have honestly not heard a single negative comment to the referee or the opposing team while watching. Same with junior cricket. We didn't have any letters to parents about the expected behaviour, or code of conduct to sign, or anything like that - it just happens.

Local kids soccer is pretty much the same, although I do know of a couple of kids who were banned due to parents behavior and they do get people to sign agreements about not shouting at either players or officials.

Massive contrast to what I remember from playing kids RL. There were certain teams even at u-11 where you just turned up expecting a punch-up on and off the pitch.

I think the problem is fairly serious in soccer, which is why they spent so much cash on their Ray Winstone campaign. I suspect the fact that it afflicts soccer and RL, but not RU and cricket has a lot to do with our respective demographics.

Fundamentally, the officials can't be left alone on this. It really is the responsibility of the clubs these people attach themselves to. If they cannot control their supporters, then the clubs should be penalised with points deductions, or even expulsions from the league. That sounds draconian, but I'm wearing two hats here, one club and one ref, and I feel strongly about this in both roles. If I can't get my touchline to stop unacceptable behaviour, then my team deserves to be penalised.

Ultimately, this is not hard to do at youth level. If you have a parent who is causing grief, you simply tell him that his lad is no longer welcome at the club until such time as that parent can control himself.

All too often clubs back their coaches and supporters no matter what. I too have 2 roles, ref and club chair (actually 3 as I also chair the league) and I feel that my club has to have the highest standard of behaviour. The coach who caused me problems yesterday wouldn't last 5 minutes at my club.

A lot of the youngsters who play RL in the Midlands have played Union, and there is a noticable difference in behaviour. Even when they haven't, the majority of the clubs have good standards and are happy to sort any problems out.

As an ex-referee, I concur that the overly abusive and vocal speccies are in the minority,both as parents in youth games and general supporters in open-age games. As a ref, I generally felt removed from most of it but could empathise with my touch judges because they were getting it right in their lugholes. I can count on one hand the number of times I had to speak with club officials to get them to clean up their act and I only ever once abandoned a game. That was a BARLA youth cup game and I abandoned it after a fight broke out and a non-playing member of one club decided to cross the rope and lamp an opposition player. I immediately blew and started walking to the dressing room, my reason for abandoning the game was simple: I had no problem with controlling the players, subs, officials etc. but once the public became involved on the pitch, it was no longer within my remit.

I once ran the line in a local (Hull), Open Age cup semi-final and had obviously irked one dipstick on the touchline. He spent most of the first half following me up & down the touchline, rabbiting in my ear. He even followed me on the other touchline in the 2nd half. About ten minutes into the 2nd half I noticed a well-known local nutter and took the opportunity to let him know that "the bloke with the golf umbrella had been slagging your sister off continuously". Now, the nutter may not have been the sharpest tool in the box but he was hard as nails and fiercely loyal to his family. A couple of minutes later I heard a strangled "aaaaarrrrrggggghhhhhhh" and saw the golf umbrella drop to the floor, as the holder crumpled in a battered heap. We enjoyed a quiet game after that

I must admit that I am amazed how much respect is shown to refs here in Perth usually. Even alot of the crowd address the ref as "sir" if they yell something at him! It is something that is bred into the kids at jnr level, always call the ref sir.

I have mentioned this before but the funiest thing I ever saw on a RL field was andy dannat (ex Hull prop) reffing an under 12's game in West Hull. One particlularly gobby father was giving all the kids a spray and Dannat blew his whistle to stop the game. Strolled over to the idiot and in no uncertain terms told him what course of action would occur if he didn;t keep his mouth shut. Needless to say the man never peeped another thing!

Maybe that is the answer, employ props as refs or touchies!

the behaviour of some parents is deplorable and it always ends up being those who should know better and who any other given week would behave like normal human beings should. the others just dont know any better and just get frustrated cos they have never held a ball in hand in real battle . either way all are knobs

Ive seen Tims reffing, no wonder he gets abuse

Only kidding mate, hope your keeping well , are the Sheffield lot still playing ?

my experience here in Australia is that the junior leagues are well organised and managed and there are teams of referees that are appointed to a days refereeing, as such they have peer support at the game... also the clubs themselves are held accountable and each team manager along with the ground manager is on hand to manage the attendees.