mardi 22 avril 2014

A Linesman Tools Define His Officiating

By Essie Osborn


The word linesman is common in field sport. This entails team play which means a lot of players being involved. Ultimately, the need for a fair play and good match officiating will be a necessity. That brings us to the reason as to why we have referees and linesmen. A linesman plays the subsidiary role to the referee. His work is to assist the referee. For this to take effect, they have to possess good working equipment. For this case, the major concern will be on the importance of linesman tools.

The type and nature of tools that linesmen use depend on the type of sport the linesman is. The few sports that entail the need of a linesman are: Football (soccer), American Football, and Rugby. The synonymous nature of the games is not an irony. Rugby is attributed to giving birth to soccer and American football in turn came from Rugby. The basic information is that, in Rugby, we have a linesman and so is soccer and American football. The equipment generally used are: watches, earpiece sets for communication, jerseys, whistles, boots and flags.

This have contributed to key, fair and on point decisions. The many controversies that have bedeviled Soccer, the most popular sport on earth, are the on field poor officiating. The 1986, hand of gold, goal scored by arguably the best player in the world, Maradona on England, was a clean handball.

Such a handball could be easily been avoided if the match officials were well equipped, skilled and to some extent had the input of technology to a reasonable extent as their present companions have. A handball, for the little who know, is controlling of handling of the ball with a players arms. Football players do contrary to what the NBA players do. This is the reason as to why goalkeepers have gloves on to handle the ball.

Linesmen ought to be quick, precise and on-point with their decision. This is arguably the characteristics and qualities of a desirable linesman. This however deserves a good equipping. In the English Premier League, linesmen are equipped with flags, jerseys to distinguish them from players and earpiece sets for communication. They also have modernized minute boards that fourth officials use in keeping and showing additional time.

The flags are important in field sport. For one reason, for communication. It would be quite archaic to use a microphone or speaker every time the ball crossed the line as way to signal that. This is why FIFA and IRB, the soccer governing body and their rugby counterparts respectively, have trained their linesmen in official sign communication with the referee. This is done with the aid of a flag.

Earpiece, this is an electronic device fitted in ones ear to enable communication through either Bluetooth or other wireless communication. This technology has been embraced by American football and Soccer in the English Premier league to be specific. This tool has enabled the easier and fair decision making as communication can be done through that. The referee can talk with the linesman, the linesman in turn can countercheck with the other match officials before reaching a sound decision. This has reduced the possibility of cases like that of Maradona in the 1986 world cup match.

Boots, whistles and referring attire have traditionally been the tools being used in match officiating. They cannot be ignored because without them field sport could not be what it is today.




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