Every weekend, at least one animated manager or incandescent player is spotted confronting a referee in the Premier League.
Only the individuals involved know exactly what is said, but it's safe to assume those conversations are not friendly. That is the perception at grassroots level, where amateur coaches and players - including youngsters - are mimicking Premier League stars by hurling abuse at officials. In some instances, that abuse at grassroots level is physical.
In Greg Cruttwell's new film In The Middle, the unglamorous career of being a grassroots referee is documented. Their love for football is obvious, but so are the tribulations they face on a weekly basis. As Cruttwell protests, attitudes towards referees need to improve.
"It's so difficult for young refs coming into the game," Cruttwell tells Mirror Football. "So many of them come in in their teenage years and give it up before they really get going - some who could be fantastic - because they take horrific abuse from people twice or three times their age ganging up on them on Sunday mornings."
The numbers are shocking. BBC Radio 5 Live asked more than 900 grassroots officials in England whether they had been physically abused by a spectator, player, coach or manager while refereeing. Remarkably, 293 of them said yes.
"If you ask any of the refs in In The Middle what they would say to any young ref coming in to the game, they would say, 'You need a thick skin and you need to be tough and strong mentally because there’s going to be a lot of s*** thrown at you, and you’ve got to be able to come through that'.
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"It’s just so sad that it’s like that and, generally, people aren’t more supportive. They [the Football Association] brought in the Respect campaign back in 2008... and it’s hardly made any difference at all. You still see most of the same appalling behaviour from people if you go to any youth team or age-group games on a Saturday and Sunday."
Cruttwell has urged those at the top of the English game to improve their behaviour towards referees. Aleksandar Mitrovic is facing a lengthy ban after pushing referee Chris Kavanagh earlier this month, while the likes of Mikel Arteta and Jurgen Klopp have faced criticism for their behaviour on the touchline. The Liverpool manager has even claimed talking to a referee is like talking to "my microwave". "You get no response really," said Klopp.
"If you look at the way Premier League managers, and the top managers, treat referees, as opposed to how they do in rugby, where they have no interaction with them at all," argues Cruttwell. "When you’ve got Klopp and the others all yelling and hurling abuse at referees and [Jose] Mourinho [doing the same] and whatever, it’s obviously all repeated behaviour.
"That gets repeated by coaches all the way down in grassroots football. It gets repeated by parents and players, who think they can gather around refs and touch them… referees just get a really hard time. It’s no wonder the numbers of them are dwindling.
"Unless there’s a massive change, it’ll always be around. It needs a draconian approach. I think referees need to walk onto the pitch and they only deal with the captain... if any other players come around them or talk to them or touch them, they immediately get a yellow card.
"The moment you start doing that - it’s not going to take very long - teams and players are going to stop doing it because they won’t want to pick up yellow and red cards."
Love for the game obvious
Despite the abuse, Cruttwell's new film shows just how much amateur and semi-professional referees love football. In The Middle documents the lives of several officials from different backgrounds - including transgender referee Lucy Clark, 76-year-old linesman Ron "Rocket" Clarkson and ambitious official Dele Sotimirin.
Cruttwell was inspired to make the film after starting Balham FC in 2001. Balham have since become one of London's most prominent semi-professional clubs - boasting more than 20 teams - and once had Liverpool talent Fabio Carvalho on their books.
Cruttwell is now Balham's president but was the first-team's manager for a long time. During the last two decades, he's encountered dozens of players, coaches and referees. "It just fascinated me - all the different people who refereed games and were officials.
"Just wondering, 'Who are these people? And why on Earth would you do what they do?' You’re so vulnerable, you’re out there on your own. Basically, you’re turning up to be shouted at! Very rarely do you get a thank you and sometimes you get much worse than being shouted at... they were such an odd species of people and really interesting.
"It got to a point where I thought, 'I’d really like to get inside that world - as a filmmaker - and see what it’s all about and tell the story of an eclectic group of them and show the world who they are'. I wanted it to be a celebration of them, in a way, because without them there wouldn’t be any organised competitive football."
Of all the characters in In The Middle, the story of Clarkson is the most compelling. He was an eccentric hoarder who lived with his parrot and started refereeing in 1959, with the FA giving him an award and letter to commend him on his 60 years of service at the end of the film. The linesman's joy at receiving the honour was heart-warmingly obvious.
Clarkson was nicknamed "Rocket" because of his "spindly legs" and unique way of running up and down the touchline. Sadly, he passed away in 2021 before the film's release.
Clarkson played a huge role in the making of In The Middle. Cruttwell initially made a five-minute feature of the elderly official and was encouraged to make a full film after receiving positive reviews.
"He was such a sweet and lovely man. He was loved by everyone in grassroots football, and everyone knew about him... He’s a slightly eccentric, odd character but just a lovely, warm person who does it - absolutely - for the love of the game.
"I just thought, ‘There are so many other interesting characters and people that I know of out there. I’m going to widen it and make it about a whole bunch of them'."
IN THE MIDDLE is in cinemas 31st March and VOD 1st May www.inthemiddlefilm.co.uk
