Saturday, 19 April 2014

A Linesman Tools Define His Officiating

By Essie Osborn


A linesman is like a sectary of an office assistant but in a good way. In field sport linemen contribute a huge role in the good officiating and smooth flow of the matches that take place. This is the desire of stakeholders of any given sport, be it players, coaches, fanatics or even the owners of teams. A lot goose on it team sport as this attracts a lot of attention in terms of numbers and following. With this comes huge responsibilities that are given to a few. For the chosen few to carry out this they need good linesman tools.

There are a variety of tools that can be used by linesmen. This however depend on the type of sport in consideration. The most common sports that generally ought to have linesmen are Football (soccer) and American Football and in Rugby. Their synonymous nature in naming spreads even to the field of play. Their roles, linesmen, in both sports. The equipment of use are: boots, flags, minute boards for showing additional time especially in football, jerseys, watches, whistles and earpiece communication sets.

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 on the other hand have acted like mobile phone in the field. It is easier to call someone who is far than shouting. The earpiece in this case entail both the shouting and easy accessing of a referee from a linesman and vice versa. Linesman as assistants can seek further clarity from the other officials and in turn a true judgment is made before the whistle is blown.

It goes without saying that watches, boots, jerseys and whistles play an essential role in all team sport. It is a must to have them and for that matter some significant level of recognition ought to be accorded.




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