As Grant also had a match in France this weekend, he picked me up at home at 06.40 and we travelled together to Glasgow Airport. We got the 9.25 flight to Paris CDG and were met by Patrick at the airport. He had to make a quick stop at his office then we had lunch at a small cafe nearby. He then took us on a whistle-stop tour of the main tourist areas of Central Paris before dropping us back at the IBIS hotel at the airport. We met up with Mamdouh, my 1st referee, and then Patrick and Grant left for their match as they had 150kms to travel to their venue. Mamdouh lives on the Luxembourg border and had just driven 350km to get to the hotel which is his nearest venue. Normally he would take the TGV (which is only about a 1 hour journey) but as I needed to get to the venue he brought his car. This is just another example of the tremendous support we are receiving.

Mamdouh and I left at 5.30pm to get to the match as we would be travelling through heavy Paris traffic, but we made good time arriving just about 6.20pm. We went to a small cafe across the road from the stadium for a pre-match coffee. We had just taken our first sip when Mamdouh got a call asking where we were! The match had been brought forward, the teams were warming up, and the match was due to start in 30mins!! It later transpired that the match time had been changed 2 days before and everyone had been told apart from the refereeing corps. Where have I heard that before?

We rushed over to the hall and were greeted in the hallway by the Paris coach, and one of the 2 female linejudges. As we were getting changed the 2nd linejudge arrived looking slightly flustered. We arrived in the hall with 15 mins to go and immediately checked the net height, did the toss, and got the net warm up under way. Mamdouh introduced me to the coaches and once they realised my grasp of the French language is schoolboy “the dog is under table” they spoke to me in English and were all quite friendly. Before we knew it, we were lining up in the middle of court for the presentation. After the teams were introduced, we moved back to the referee’s chair, the teams shook hands, and we went directly to the centre of the court. I was introduced as International referee from Scotland and received a very warm welcome from the 350 crowd. We were ready to go and we had done none of the usual pre-match checks or preparation. After missing my first 2 matches, it’s not the way I would have liked to start my first match in France.

The first 2 sets were very close with nothing between the teams, but on both occasions the visitors managed to just pull away at the end to win by 25-23, 25-22. We had the obligatory 10 minute break between sets 2 and 3 and this is when we noticed that Gerard Noel was at the back of the hall. Not all matches have supervisors and up until this season if an international referee was involved they didn’t have one. We left the hall for a few minutes and when we returned the teams were warming up on court. I was then surprised when Mamdouh blew to allow them another 2 minute net warm-up. Obviously we didn’t have any chance to discuss these matters due to the early match start.

The long break obviously broke the momentum and Paris came storming out to win the next 2 sets 25-20, 25-20 to take us to a tie break. During the match there had been few challenged decisions, and inevitably with the net fault rule changes, there were a couple of claimed net faults. On the Ales side, the coaching staff gave more of a plea than complaint and accepted my decision. The Paris coach, from Brazil, on the other hand chose to shout at me that we were in France now, and not in Scotland. I can only assume that he is of the belief that we have different net fault rules over here! As Mamdouh never heard him, I chose not report the incident as I have thick skin and I didn’t want my 1st match to be remembered that way.

The 5th set didn’t disappoint, and both teams played hard with never more than a one point lead for either team. At one stage in the set, just as the Paris server took off, the buzzer sounded, but the server still managed to execute a great serve. I looked around but no-one took responsibility. The Paris coach looked understandably unhappy and the Ales assistant looks slightly guilty, but with no lights it was impossible to say who did it. An insight into some of the gamesmanship we need to be aware of. At about 12-12 there was a close base-line call given against the Paris team and the Paris coach erupted and went right up to the line judge who was at his side and shouted right into her face. Mamdouh immediately called the captain over and issued a final warning to the team. The match eventually finished 16-14 for Paris.

Both sets of players and assistant coaches shook our hands warmly, but only the losing coach from Ales shook hands and congratulated us on a good match. It’s always nice when a losing coach in a close match genuinely thanks you, but disappointing when the winning coach can’t take the time to offer his hand. “Not a very nice man” as Mamdouh so politely put it.

The match was played at a very high tempo, with few errors, few calls made by me, and the behaviour of the teams was generally very good. In terms of substitutions, the players very fairly disciplined and looked to me all the time for permission to enter the court. There was only one time when the Paris coach pressed the buzzer after the 1st referees whistle and I waved him away only for him to press the buzzer again. Mamdouh immediately stopped the rally and issued a delay warning. The coach tried to act surprised but he knew exactly what he was doing. Unfortunately, the scorer was a bit unsure what to put on the scoresheet, and it didn’t help that I was telling her to put a D when in fact it should have been an R. (French scoresheet – not CEV)

 We had one other situation when the libero came on court just as the coach wanted to make a substitution for his replacement player. They quickly changed back to allow the substitution to take place and Mamdouh called the captain over to warn them about this in the future. I asked him later if he felt I should have refused the substitution but he said that as there was no libero replacement sheet I was right to allow it.

Gerard came to the changing room and we had a quick debriefing. He had also been told the wrong match start time! He had a few minor comments to make but in general thought we had refereed well and got all the decisions correct, as had the linejudges. He said Mamdouh had refereed at a consistent level, but had maybe been a bit generous with handling; with one shot in particular which he agreed with. There were a few handling decisions I thought were a bit lenient, but to be honest I probably wouldn’t have called them either, as I tend to be a bit generous as well – Keep the ball flying and all that. Gerard thought he should have carded the Paris coach for his outburst, but he accepted that Mamdouh thought it would have killed the game if he had done so, and again I may well have done the same thing. Jan Rek told us last month in Poland that sometimes you have to do something you know the supervisor will criticise you for in order to “survive the game – don’t get killed out there” and I think this was a perfect example – Technically wrong but right for the game at that moment.

I was initially criticised for not moving enough “not using the full 3 metres”, however this is exactly the opposite of what Fred Kroger told us in Poland - The 2nd referee should take no more than one step either side of the post. Gerard also said that when 2 teams ask for substitution that the serving team should be done 1st and not both at the same time. This never actually happened as the 2nd team was asked to wait and did, however he may not have seen me doing this. He commented on my body position when showing time-outs (I apparently lean over!) and I allowed the assistant coach to sit on the end seat. If I’d spotted this earlier I may have prevented the buzzer incident. These are all things to work on but thankfully no major incidents which is crucial for us all in these first few months. Mamdouh and I both felt our co-operation was very good and we were both happy with our performance.

Gerard joined Mamdouh and me for the customary after match dinner in the local Buffalo Grill where we had a nice meal and enjoyed some pleasant conversation in English. We split the bill and got separate receipts, and then we went for an evening tour of Paris at night. We had to time it to arrive at the Eiffel Tower just before midnight as they only light up the tower for 10 minutes of every hour now to save electricity. Gerard was born in Paris so we had quite an extensive and informative tour of Paris. By the time we arrived back at the hotel it was getting late and Patrick had already left. Mamdouh was leaving early in the morning for his long drive back home so Grant and I thanked him and said our goodbyes.

As our flight was not until 9.00pm on Sunday night, Grant and I checked out about 11.00am and left our luggage at the airport before embarking on a walking tour of Paris. Fortunately the weather was kind, and we managed to kill a few of the 9 hours we had before our flight. By the time I got home I was pretty exhausted from a long but enjoyable weekend.

In summary, it was a very good match, and I enjoyed working with Mamdouh and found him and Gerard very pleasant to spend time with. He refereed well and the scorer and linejudges did a very good job too. Everyone was friendly and seemed to accept me without any problems. The standard of play was high and it gave me the opportunity not only to referee at this level but to get practise of the full protocol/ court layout etc that we don’t operate in our national leagues. I also think that the league will be more challenging than some CEV competition as the discipline of players’ and coaches tends to be higher in European cups than I think it will be in the French League.

My only concern is the long time spent on Sundays waiting for the return flight, but maybe we can find alternative flights in the second half of the season, but hey, it’s a small price to pay to get this experience. And did you notice that the match venue was in avenue Pierre de Coubertin – named after the founder of the International Olympic Committee and founding father of the modern Olympics. ...........Spooky!!

Brian McDougall
19th November 2009