Ask The Ref: The Jeff Winter Column

Former Premier League referee Jeff Winter is here every week on Vital Hartlepool and he'll be giving his opinions on all things football each week.

You can email any questions to hartlepool@vitalfootball.co.uk or leave an article comment and the questions will be put to him in the next column.

I`d like to know whether referees relationships with managers are really like they seem on television and in the papers, or whether that is more pantomime than reality.
The Master

For a start, referees relationships with managers and indeed players are very volatile, and usually decision based. As in life you do get on better with some than others, a refs job is not to be liked or popular but to give decisions as he sees them.

The best a Ref can hope for is to be respected, you can have fall outs with people and that probably tars the relationship. The bottom line is that the Referee is always an easy target, a manager whose team has not performed or has lost usually finds blaming the ref an easy option.

So yes, an element of pantomime, but mostly an occupational hazard.

Do you think that Pools have a good enough strike force this season? I am a bit worried after we wasted a lot of chances in the game at Luton.
Aaron

I don`t really think Pools have an out and out goalscorer ( Barker apart) who will at this level score 15- 20 plus goals this season. But I do feel that there are goals in the team, their brand of open attacking football creates chances, I would be more worried if chances were not created.

When you look at Moore, Porter, Brown, they are capable of getting into double figures and I would expect goals from midfield Liddle, Sweeney, Monkhouse, Bullock, Humphreys etc. and also from set plays from Clark, Nelson and Antwi.

When you add all that together I think there will be enough goals to challenge for promotion, add to that a very sound defence and maybe the number of goals scored will not be as important.

Do refs pay any attention to the abuse they get? and why do they all apparently work in financial institutions? (The chant is saying the ref is a banker I presume?)
The Fear

Well having worked in a financial institution I certainly was a BANKER. That chant always makes me laugh, is there something wrong with masturbation? Is it something that only referees do? Do fans not occasionally perform a little self help?

Anyway I digress, you have to be thick skinned and if you were at all worried or affected by the chants then you would not do the job. Some of them are quite funny anyway.

If you want to ask Jeff Winter anything, refereeing related or not, you can email hartlepool@vitalfootball.co.uk with your question or leave an article comment and they'll be put to him in the next column. They don`t necessarily need to be related to Hartlepool United either.

Remember to check Vital Hartlepool each week for Jeff`s latest columns. Plus you can also visit Jeff`s personal website at www.jeffwinterentertainmentandmedia.co.uk and listen to him each Saturday on 96.6 TFM.

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