My son recently took part in a 5-a-side football tournament, with a trophy awarded at the end of the day. There were two groups, A and B, with different referees.
My son’s team did really well and made it through to the semi-final where they got off to a great start with a goal 2 minutes in. They celebrated and high-fived while the other team calmly trotted the ball to the other end of the pitch and put it in the back of the net, right past the goalie who didn’t even try to stop them.
John, the ref, shouted ‘1-1’ and all hell broke loose with players and parents shouting and protesting. Quite quickly I realised what the problem was – there were two rule systems in operation under the two different refs.
