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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.

As all football fans know, it’s all well and good supporting a team but the game is much more fun if you can also dislike a team or two. Regardless of whether things are going well for your own team, there’s always hope that results elsewhere will allow us to laugh at the image of someone somewhere crying into his Saturday night chicken madras from Balti Towers. As a football fan I support my own team and have a healthy dislike of a selection of others, but I’m fortunate that as a referee I can do something similar in that field too. Naturally I support my colleagues, but I also like a laugh at the expense of those for whom thinking is a chore best avoided.

Sky’s Andy Gray, for example. He’s mellowed over the past couple of years but still spends much of his air-time criticising referees for not doing things the laws of the game prohibit them from doing, or for not seeing things that are obvious to him and us after watching slow-motion replays from five angles.

During the recent Tottenham v Newcastle game Steve Harper, the Newcastle goalkeeper, got a fingertip to the ball which seemed to be going over the bar anyway. The referee didn’t see the touch – and nor did I until I saw the slow-motion replay from another angle – so gave a goal kick. Gray said, “The Spurs players knew it. They all appealed for a corner straight away”.

Was this the first football match Gray had ever been to? How can he think that the players’ appeals can be proof that the goalkeeper touched the ball? Maybe the referee should have said: “Oh, sorry lads, you’ve all got your arms up. Would you like a corner instead? Sorry Steve, they tell me you touched the ball so I’ve changed my mind.” How rude of the referee to ignore their opinion.

I’ve refereed games in which a player has kicked the ball off the pitch with no-one within two yards of him but has still put his arm up and shouted, “Our ball”. Parks players regularly claim a corner after a shot or header goes out for a goal kick, and I often smile and say something like, “No way”. One of the players usually smiles back and says, “Well you’ve got to try, haven’t you?”. If you don’t mind me being influenced by your opponents’ claims at the other end in a minute or two, then yes, you’ve got to try. Otherwise, no.

It would be very useful if referees could gauge player reaction to help them reach a decision. They shouldn’t rely on it, but it would be a useful tool for when all else fails. The reason referees generally have to ignore player reaction is that so many players claim regularly throughout each game that the next decision should go their way. If players don’t like it that referees must ignore them, they should consider the reasons why they are ignored.

So next time you’re thinking of appealing for a decision you know shouldn’t go your way, just remember the words of someone less fortunate than ourselves: “The Spurs players knew it. They all appealed for a corner straight away.” If you want to be the next victim of the Andy Gray school of refereeing, appeal away and the loudest shout gets the decision. Rather than making the number of wrong decisions increase in this way, an alternative is to try to cope with the odd mistake and let the referee decide. But for now I’ll decide to keep laughing at Andy Gray.

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My new book - Beat About The Bush: The Funny Side of Language - is now available from Amazon here: 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 everday life.