Not entirely related - but this reminds me of my mate who actually threw a punch aa referee in a Sunday League Game and to be honest, think that ref fully deserved it.
For some reason, that referee decided for whatever reason that morning to pick on my mate the entire match. From about 5 minutes in he started to, for some weird reason, decide to pick on my mate for his appearance and refer to him constantly as "Twink". It was really fecking bizarre.
My mate is tall, lanky, skinny and a bit of a pretty boy and the ref decided he hated him from the get go. 5 mins in, my mate shoots and completely skuffs it and the ref goes "aww, little twink not got his shooting boots on today?" It wasn't quiet, it wasn't subtle and everyone heard it. Even the opposing team were like "WTF did the ref just say?"
He's a quiet, introverted lad but the ref was relentless. Throughout the entire game comments like:
"Pretty boy thinks he's Maradonna does he?"
"Little Twinks in the wrong sport, should stick to modelling mate."
"Get up you little twink."
"That's what happens when you pass the ball to the twink" -> To the rest of us.
It was so weird that at half time someone went to speak to him and the ref brushed it off as a "little bit of banter." He never said anything substantial to any of the other 21 players on the pitch but just spent the entire game picking on this one guy.
Two thirds into the game, my mate received a really bad tackle and it was visible that that there were stud marks just below the knee when it was raked across and started bleeding. When he protested to the ref, the ref replied, almost verbatim, "Aww, little pretty boy can't stand to see the sight of blood?"
It got so bad that the guy from the opposing team who made the tackle came over to apologize to him both for the tackle and for the way the ref was behaving.
Came to blows with about 15 minutes to go when he got tackled really bad again, went down to the ground in pain, ball went out for a throw and the opposing team player went to grab his hand to help him up. Once up, the ref comes over and says to the opposing team player, "Should have left that soft little ponce on the floor"
My mate lost it and windmilled at the ref, missed, everyone came in and seperated it, my mate got sent off and that was that. Our team filed an official complaint and no idea what happened to that ref but never saw him again. But after the game it was so bad that even the opposing team came to apologize for the ref. Never ever seen a situation where the ref just picks out a guy and starts trying to wind him up the entire game.
Most bizarre Sunday League Story.
