Ian Nockolds: “I’m delighted to welcome back to the Toolstation Western League podcast, Martin Cassidy, the CEO of the charity, Ref Support. Martin, thanks very much for taking the time to speak to us today. So much to talk to you about, but at a time when so many of us, particularly fans of grassroots football, are frustrated with having very little to do, it seems like this is your Cup Final – I’ve never known you to be so busy.”

Martin Cassidy: “Thanks, it’s always lovely to be on the podcast, like I’ve said before, because I came through the Western League, as a linesman, a referee, a coach and I’m still working there in other forms, supporting referees and clubs coming through.”

“Unfortunately, the year’s getting quite bad and what’s happening is, it’s clear that there’s frustrations out there in the game, very, very clear with regards to what’s happening with the top flight game. But they don’t realise that the top flight ... 99.8% of football is played away from TV cameras. And they seem to think that whenever anything goes out trying to do something positive about helping referees and the relationship between players and referees, the reference point always seems to be that – 0.2%.

“And I feel when people start realising that grassroots football owns the game, if every one of us stopped playing grassroots football, it wouldn’t half have an effect.

“We created an idea called Give The Ref A Hand, which was an exclusive in The Times, about giving the ref a hand, it wasn’t just about a clap, and then The Times put out a photograph of Mike Dean on this Give The Ref A Hand saying we want to clap our refs, which then had tons of abuse – some of the tweets were just outrageous, I know you’ve seen them . . .

IN: “Yeah, well, I wanted to get you on the podcast to talk about the Give The Ref A Hand campaign because I’m really interested to hear what you were looking to do, and how it would have benefited and celebrated the match officials that we have in the Western League.”

MC: “It was mainly aimed at youth teams, and a lot of the teams in the Western League. Loads of them said it was a good idea. We wanted to come back from Covid with a better game. We had a spike in people getting hold of us saying, ‘people are losing their marbles over a throw-in, whereas in the past we might have just gone, ‘Oh, come on, ref.’

“There was a clear raise in the temperature of how people came out of lockdown. Even more so because the weather’s been terrible, we couldn’t sit in our gardens and work like we could in the last lockdown.

“This lockdown took it to another level, the dark nights, the bad weather, the cold. And I think everyone’s missing football a little bit more. Give The Ref A Hand is a campaign about giving the referee a hand to create a better environment for us to participate in football, give the ref a hand to create an environment where young referees and young players can flourish, give the ref a hand to create something that we want to do every week, we don’t want to regret – we don’t want to think, ‘I’ve got to go to that ground now because they give me loads [of abuse] or those players are terrible.’

“And to start that was just a sort of activation, was just to clap the ref out on the first game back, it was mainly aimed at grassroots and youth football, but we had clubs in the Western League and other ones that said, ‘yep, we’ll embrace this straightaway.’ This was more about getting hold of the grassroots game ourselves and the problems there and let’s address it ourselves away from the FA.

“The FA has the Respect campaign. They’ve had years to do something, and it hasn’t really got any traction. We feel if all of us get together on this and create something that we want, clubs can own it. There’s all these campaigns, brilliant stuff that we support, we know there’s huge problems in football with racism and homophobic abuse and all this needs addressing, 100%. But it also seems that if they’ve got a referee shirt on, they’re fair game for abuse, no matter what colour, creed, or religion they are. I just can’t see why football doesn’t recognise that.”

IN: “One of the reasons why I’ve enjoyed our conversations over the years and why I really support the work of you and your organisation, Martin, is because I think what your efforts are trying to remind us of is the humanity of match officials. It’s very easy to just see the uniform and I think that the context within which non-league football in particular should see your efforts is really to say, you know the players will shake hands before the kick-off, it’s a symbolic gesture, but it’s there as a sign of respect. Anything we can do to respect the fact that our match officials are as much a part of our game as our players and our club volunteers is absolutely the right thing to do and reminds us that actually they’re people inside and they have feelings.”

MC: “We’re always the first to blame and the last to praise. You’ve only got to look up Match of the Day, we tweeted them and did a long thread of how terrible it was that they get away with what they do. There’s an email going into the BBC to complain about it. I know people will say, ‘oh stop being a snowflake, but we feel we’ve got a duty to point out that just like a Ronaldo turn and Peter Crouch robot dance, people at grassroots football and children will mimic it.

“Why do we think they wouldn’t mimic the behaviour of these players in the comments that people like Gary Lineker and co are making on a primetime TV show about football? They even mocked the referee over blowing his whistle twice, Lee Mason, yeah you know, schoolboy error, absolutely, he’ll know that, we all know that. But someone missed two penalties in that game. One team lost one nil, and that team missed two penalties.

“Match of the Day spent four seconds talking about missing two penalties and went, ‘Oh yeah, but players make mistakes too.’ They talked for four minutes and 38 seconds about a referee blowing his whistle twice and how ridiculous that was.

“Players can make all the mistakes in the world, they can cost points. A referee can make a dodgy penalty decision, dodgy red card and they’re the ones that cost us the game, made us lose. But no one equates says, ‘well, actually, our multi-million-pound player cannot score one-on-one with a goalkeeper from twelve yards with no fans in the grounds, twice! But a referee who has players hanging him for all the game, blows his whistle twice, makes an error, and I’m not going to say it wasn’t, but that’s the headline.

“Why can’t people see that these people are individuals, they’re fathers, they’re mothers, they’re sons, they’re daughters. This de-sensitisation of ref abuse has just gone on for too long. We all need to own it and we all need to try and make it better.”

IN: On a serious note for football fans who don’t normally watch Match of the Day because we’re too busy following our own clubs, we haven’t got that outlet at the moment, so let’s talk about the human scale of what you are describing.

I’m sure people listening to this will have seen the double whistle blow by Lee Mason, they will have seen Gary Lineker talking about it on Match of the Day and they will have their own opinion about it. Arguably, people at the peak of their careers, whether they’re match officials or players I suppose that comes with the territory, the same with actors and any sort of very high-profile individual, but what are your concerns about what it might mean for the grassroots game?

Because we’ve got an army of match officials who cover our games every week, we’ve got an army of football fans who haven’t been able to actually go to a game. Are you concerned that some of the behaviour we’re seeing on social media is actually going to spill out and make the situation at grassroots level worse than it has been?

MC: Absolutely. Here we are the day after the Man United- Chelsea game, talking on this podcast. There was a decision that should have been a penalty, VAR didn’t give it, referee didn’t give it, it was a penalty. There’s a conversation between a match official and Harry Maguire, an England International, listened to by another player, Luke Shaw, who then goes on the TV, totally throws the referee under the bus and says, ‘ah, he said to Harry that he didn’t want to give it because he’d get some stick’, or whatever it was, I don’t know the exact terminology, but the words are irrelevant.

The process of what’s happened here, Luke Shaw thought it was appropriate to go on national TV and throw the referee under a bus for the conversation they had. Now interestingly, on Match of the Day they said, ‘Oh, let’s listen closely here’, and they played it and they said, ‘Look here he is, the referee’s blown twice on that one.’ So, they threw the referee under the bus there, Gary Lineker.

What they don’t do, they don’t leave the sound on where the players are going ‘You’re a disgrace, you’re ridiculous’ which the newspaper The Daily Mail reported, because they were there, and they heard it all.

So, this sort of strategy to justify how a referee’s wrong, but never to justify that a player’s wrong in his behaviour is something that really needs to change. Because, like we said, we’ve become fair game at every level of football. And you see people shouting out at grassroots levels of the Western League and below, things and actions that they will hear on the TV. And then at the end of the Match of the Day, they end it by doing a final whistle, you know, the three beeps on a whistle, totally taking the mick out of the referee and mocking him.

And then these are the people that are then saying, ‘Wasn’t it terrible that Caroline Flack committed suicide because of social media abuse’, and then weeks later, they’re doing the same to a referee. I just can’t see why referees are fair game. I know there’s some great teams out there in the Western League, they’re brilliant and the vast majority are brilliant, absolutely brilliant, but there’s small numbers getting bigger and louder.

And the FA released a statement, made a statement and we complained that they never defended Mike Reed or grassroots referees on their social media.

They’re quick to say, ‘Oh, look, someone’s been suspended and fined £2,000’, they’re very quick to do that, the FA on social media, but they won’t send a message out not condoning that sort of behaviour of death threats and stuff like that. And it’s the worry for us that if the FA national governing body aren’t going to come out to support referees, who is?

IN: I know one of the other things we’ve talked about over the years has been the support that you provide to match officials. I suppose all of us are acutely aware at the moment of our own mental health situation. And that is because many of us are working from home, we’re stopped from seeing the people that we love. But when you throw into the mix, the type of abuse that you’re talking about, what is the situation at the moment regarding Ref Support and the work you’re doing to help people’s mental health?

MC: Well, we’ve still got the helpline, which is open 24/7, even Christmas Day, and that’s sponsored by Watermark Wealth Management, which is a business in Burnham-on-Sea and a great supporter of Ref Support UK, so that enables us to have that open all the time. Social media as you mentioned is hugely popular, we get lots of people coming to us.

And then we’re launching this, Give The Ref A Hand campaign, which is all about giving the ref a hand to create a better environment, not just giving him a round of applause.

Otherwise, it would have been called ‘Give the Ref a Round of Applause’! And now we’ve got the Mental Health First Aiders that we’re launching later on today, which is Monday, March 1st.

We’ve got a sponsor who’s going to support us to pay for between 12 and 15 people to get trained up as Mental Health First Aiders, which is a certified course delivered by professionals, so people are available all over the country.

One of the things about us and compared to the FA or the Referee Association, is that we’re called Ref Support UK, every referee in the UK can have our services free, doesn’t matter, and also referees who don’t register with the FA. There’s thousands of them out there. All the other organisations, the FA just look after England, Scottish FA just Scotland, the Referee Association just does England. We’re the only organisation that will support referees, irrespective of whether they’re registered with the FA nationwide. So, we’re going to do this nationwide, we’re going to have people in Scotland, people in Wales, people in Ireland and England, just being available to give trained Mental Health First Aid to help people who are suffering because lots of things happen like comments, I remember comments getting shouted at me.

I’ve always had big ears, sticky out ears, I remember getting loads of stick about that, saying “Oh, I never paid for an obscured view because of your ears”, you know, we all get stuff that sticks with us but there’s many memories where people have said wonderful things and they’ve stuck with me too but the way we’re made as human beings, the negative ones hang around a little bit longer.

What we’re finding is that the offices are closed for the county FA, nearly all county FAs are still on furlough, they haven’t got anyone to turn to, they haven’t got anyone to just bounce things off and when they do talk to each other unfortunately, we make them realise that it’s not just them, because a lot of them think “it’s my fault. I’m the one that’s getting absolutely slated after the game. I’m the one that’s getting slated on social media because I’ve come up with an idea that people just called ridiculous.”

It’s all these little avenues where if they go to the FA when they are open, they feel as if they’re telling their manager that they’re weak, that they’re not quite strong enough to do that derby game, which they get appointed to.

So, why would you go to your county FA who give you the cup finals, who give you promotions, who give you local derbies, that you’re not mentally strong. Why would you share that, you just wouldn’t, would you? But there’s never been anything else to do outside that. So, we’re creating these conduits where, ‘look, let’s give you some support, let you understand that it isn’t just you, there’s many people out there you can learn from their experiences.

More importantly that there’s some great clubs out there that will support you, and that one that you went to with the horrible fans, they’re the minority and let’s get you out there with the better clubs.

We know clubs engage with us in the Western League and everywhere else, I’ve got them queueing up! Warminster’s another one, with Andy Crabtree, bless them an Evertonian, so he’ll give you some stick or whatever, beat Liverpool, top lad, he’s very vocal.

He can give referees loads of stick, but you can have a pint with him afterwards, he won’t carry on in the bar and give you loads. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, I’m just saying there’s people out there that will give you abuse all game, in the car park, in the bar, whole environment, toxic and horrible.

Yeah, we understand there’s frustrations, yeah, we were praying for you not to say anything to us. I’ve done it with loads of teams in the Western League over a pint and said, ‘Oh, actually, I never thought of that.’ Did you really think I wanted to get a penalty wrong? Did you really think I wanted to get that red card wrong? When people start analysing that we’re all just humans, some of us are bricklayers some of us are accountants.

It’s the realisation that referees can offer just as much to the game as a player can to increase the environment to be one that flourishes. And I think when more people realise that you’ll get more fans through the door, those fans will spend more money, everybody wins.

IN: I think that’s a really important point that you make, one of the reasons I love the Western League is because it’s a league where I feel comfortable taking my wife and children to games.

That family environment is really important, and I think sometimes, we’ve seen it in professional football, and we’d like to think the dark days are behind us, but it feels like for some people football is an opportunity to go away for a couple of hours and become a worse person.

I think one of the reasons that we’re prepared to labour this point is because we want our league to be family friendly. And I think that that will encourage people through the gate as you said, so let’s talk about the roadmap, Martin.

Now, in the short term, you mentioned an app that you had, whistle blowing for whistle blowers. Realistically, when people go to a game and they see something that they don’t like they see a referee or a linesperson being abused in a way that is not acceptable, really, we have to start taking a stand, don’t we?

MC: Everyone loses, and the roadmap to a better environment is there. You’ve got a board at the Western League that really want to do something about this. They were the first league of the country to engage with us – alright it’s from my area, but they could have said no.

Other leagues lower down, said, ‘No, well we’re just going to get on with it. The Western League didn’t say it was a big problem. They said it’s a problem they want to make less and less. And I think they do that when you have people on the board who get it that if you’re going to be watching a game and paying your money to go in and next to you is a bloke swearing –who would want that?

I look at social media and I think, ‘yeah, it’s toxic.’ But there’s an awful lot of good coming of it, and you’ve seen it, I do it on purpose, I’ll have a go, I’ll say things, I’ll reply to people exactly what a player would do. We had that out there about, ‘Oh the problem is with referees, you know, they’ll be playing next week, and you’ve missed that penalty, and it’s terrible they’re not held accountable.’

So, then I put up a tweet, ‘Well, there’s that player, he just missed two penalties, the problem is he’ll be out next week, as if nothing’s happened.’

Well, people went mad! ‘You’re a charity, you can’t do that.’ Well, sorry, you’ve been doing that to referees for decades and that’s perfectly fine.

IN: Ultimately, if we are to get control over the abuse of match officials, it’s going to take a whole game effort, isn’t it? It’s about the players on the pitch, the managers and coaches in the dugout, the supporters in the ground, and I guess you would argue that, actually, it goes above that as well. It goes into the way that the game is administered, and you’ve mentioned yourself, actually, it’s the way that the media talk about football across the board and how we analyse and understand the incidents of a game.

MC: Yeah, they want to get a grip of every single abuse that goes on, and rightly so. They want to get absolutely the lot of it, racism, homophobic abuse, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, all of it. All of it rightly needs addressing, but they seem to think that ‘But it’s okay, we can still abuse the referee. Where does ‘come on ref’ turn into so much worse. How do people think that that’s even acceptable? I can’t equate it. Well, let’s prove that as a community of grassroots Western League downwards, youth, let’s get a grip of it ourselves. Let’s all come together and make the game better together.

That’s what this Give The Ref a Hand is all about, not a clap.

IN: Martin, just in case there is anybody who isn’t aware of your excellent podcast, The Final Whistle, where can listeners find those?

MC: It’s called Referees The Final Whistle which is at: refsupport.co.uk We’ve got 24/7 hotline, which is 0300 311 1966.

The year England won the World Cup – easy to remember!