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Stephen Smith is a Senior County Referee officiating from grassroots up to semi-professional level, but his involvement in football has reached the dizzy heights of linesman for Premiership reserves and FA Vase games. By day he is a university administrator.

The signs of spring are upon us once again – the rain is no longer freezing, people are wondering where the daffodils are and it’s the quarter-finals and semi-finals of local cup competitions. That means ‘club linesmen’ and their 30-year-old dusters nailed to a bit of wood are being temporarily replaced with proper referees with shiny flags. So I thought I’d say a few words about linesmen.

That’s right, referees call them linesmen too. We know we’re Assistant Referees these days but we like to keep the number of syllables down for those who feel obliged to include us in their songs. “The Assistant Referee is a…” just doesn’t scan.

While your run-of-the-mill masochist who’s free at the weekend might apply to be a referee, no-one has ever applied to be a linesman. It would be like someone dreaming of being Robin or Tonto. Instead a referee just gets to be a linesman in a higher league or for a cup game. But if there was an advert for the job maybe it would say this…

The applicant must be able to:

·     run faster than each club’s best centre forward or winger (you can’t set off until after he has, so you’ll have to catch him up);

·     keep looking right while running in order to watch said player, the opponents around him, those almost in line with him, and the referee;

·     simultaneously keep an eye on the player with the ball, who could be 50 yards back down the same touchline;

·     decide whether the attacking player has timed his run perfectly and so isn’t ahead of the last defender after the ball is kicked by the player you can’t see behind you.

At this point you must decide whether the player is offside. You are required to either:

·     raise your flag and be shouted at for spotting his error;

·     keep your flag down and be shouted at for spotting his good sense of timing.

To stand a chance of anyone applying, the advert would intentionally not mention the rule that 30 people must stand on the touchline between you and the ball preventing you from seeing anything important. I was a linesman at a cup semi-final two years ago where this happened. After asking (and telling) people to stand back I was told not to worry because “We’ll tell you when it goes out, liner”. How kind! I went back to the same ground last year and found the club had broke with tradition and introduced a new policy of making spectators stand behind a rusty metal and concrete barrier about five yards from the line. Yes, the barrier was there the year before but then it was purely ornamental rust.

At least official linesmen get paid. The ‘club linesman’ does it for free, but maybe it serves him right. After all, he’s usually the one who had the slowest reaction time on the day the club secretary asked for someone to do the job every week for the season. The best club linesmen are those who are keen and take it seriously, and most fit the bill very well. On the opposite side of the coin, as a referee I’ve had a club linesman with a walking stick, one on his mobile phone during the game, and one throw his flag down and storm off after disagreeing with a decision.

Thankfully it’s our turn for a few weeks, so take a step back off the line and dust off your song sheet.

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Click the ‘Gaffer’s Office’ tab above for my Q&A page on the laws of the game.

My new book - Beat About The Bush: The Funny Side of Language - is now available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beat-About-Bush-Funny-Language/dp/1608603067/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256203814&sr=8-2

It's a humorous look at the funny things we all say in everyday life.