‘I cannot live without it’: grassroots referees on passion and handling abuse

L et’s be honest, Paolo Di Canio pushing over Paul Alcock; Manchester United players hunting a backpedalling Andy D’Urso; Aleksandar Mitrovic’s tantrum at Old Trafford, punished by an eight-game ban: not the least hilarious things we have seen.

And why shouldn’t we laugh? Though being aggressively confronted by professional athletes must be stressful, elite referees know they are safe, so the aggravation is simply due punishment for their effrontery in seeking power, just part of the show and good, clean fun.

Or not. Greg Cruttwell’s new film, In the Middle, introduces us to a diverse range of officials at a variety of levels, all of whom know two things: player behaviour in the Premier League inspires player behaviour through the pyramid, and grassroots referees are absolutely not safe.

“An amazing bunch,” says Cruttwell. “I always found them so fascinating as a species. Who are these people? Why on earth do they do what they do? Who would want to get out there at a weekend to be shouted out and abused?”

Almost immediately the answer becomes clear, because what links all his subjects is an obsession with the game that is shaming and affirming. “I cannot live without it,” Anne-Marie, a Jamaican teacher, tells the Observer. “The skills, the dynamics, the thrill. One of the greatest things is to see a player turn someone inside out and leave them on the pot.” Or as Steve, a retired tube driver and grandfather, says in the film: “There is no other way, I think, at our level, that you could not love the game. It has to be a passion and in my opinion the person on that football pitch who loves the game the most is the referee.”

That passion makes officiating central to the identity of those who do it – none more so than