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‘The Referee’s a wanker’ – that always puzzled me. The best chants are the humorous ones and those that are original. My favourite was ‘Oh, Graham Poll is a fucking arsehole’ – which was funny and, some might say, quite true.

You have to smile and not let the chants get to you. Once I was reffing at St. James’s Park. Newcastle were playing Blackburn Rovers and the away fans started chanting ‘You don’t know what you’re doing’. Then the Newcastle fans joined in. I had to laugh – they couldn’t all be wrong, could they!

The amount of pressure and media coverage surrounding referees nowadays is such that hearing a chant or two from the stands is like water off a duck’s back. In fact, if a ref is being abused by the fans or players of a particular side then you have to wonder how that might affect his next decision. By getting that frustration off their chests, fans could actually be adding to their team’s problems.

Ref bating is a bit like booing the ugly sisters in the Christmas pantomime; it will always happen. When it’s funny, fair enough, when it’s predictable it’s boring, and when it gets extremely personal it’s bang out of order. Those who shout abuse about players’ and refs’ wives and families? Well, they really are wankers!

Jeff Winter

February 2010