recball site marshals/refs - love em or hate em?

[Revolt]

Personally speaking, to shoot customers from the sidelines if you are not a "terminator or predator" is a bad move and will only help to fuel aformentioned knobber's adrenaline, so you should NEVER do it as a ref.

i dont do it randomly, speaking to customers throughout the day i judge who will take it as a laugh....

and no one has actually noticed it was me yet ;p

 

[evoonline]

yea completely . this wasnt the point of the thread. it was more to hear bout others stories about site reffing, i suppose to make me feel better about the bad days i have at my site. safety is no1 to myself, the other refs and site owners and i cannot stress enough that we've always put safety over anything else. we come down hard on offenders and completely understand they are there for a laugh and to have a good time. it is more about the 1 or 2 who do act like complete knobs all day and wreck the day for both refs and other customers. ive had times where ive gone in to check a player, sorted them and got out of the way only to take a load of shots in the back from the player ive just helped and i was running back towards his own team so either he likes friendly fire or was just looking for trouble. reffing a punter woodsball site its expected that u will get hit and ive put myself in the line of fire to save a customer from getting overshot or bonus balled soooo many times and will continue to do so. i love the sport and love the people who play with us (Phoenix) and skirmish but cant stand the people who dont stop when the whistle blows for the end of the game and keep it bottled up till the next game starts.

all my posts on these forums are completely my own views and not that of Phoenix paintball or skirmish. just to clear that up couldnt think of a better company to work for than Phoenix, some top refs and the site owners are the mutts nutts also.

 

[evoonline]

i aint gonna mention no names but only saturday gone we had a group of 13 bodyguards who were all built like brick outhouses. we got them to their final game and gave the field rules and instructions and set them playing. all was good up to this point and for such BIG chaps they had a really good laugh with me and the other ref running their game. another ref from our other group who had just gone in for a break came running down the field with a marker and paint loaded and proceeded to shoot 7 shades of sh!t outta these fellas and caught a dead player (whos arm was up signalling eliminated) square in the nuts, he also shot one of the same side he was coming from in between the shoulder blades before running off. their attitude changed soooo quick towards me and the other ref who had been getting on so well with them. 1 of them pushed me in threat of kicking my ass and the one who was shot in the nuts was threatening to kill the guy who had just planted a ball in his meat n 2veg. needless to say we got the ref in question to hide until the big fellas had gone then had a quiet word with the ref in question. he had no right to be on our game field and no right to be shooting my customers up and thinking back i should of let the fella he shot, find him and kick his ass.

its not always the players who are the dicks u get the odd ref whos willing to push it also.

 

[Candy]

yea. i agree, being a big lad would certainly help with the whole authority side of reffing. im 6'2" and 13 stone, atheletic build but im no where near the size of some of our refs. i have a loud voice and it helps but some people dont listen. i dont like making people sit out but safety 1st.

I get the problem of not being listened to because im tiny at just 5ft3, 17 and female!It doesnt really work for me to be honest but iv grown up on the site so iv been marshalling recball for ages, like at least 3 years. Its hard work and some must think we do it for love as money isnt great but we tend to find that if they lift there goggles once, make them sit out a game and then if they do it again they get banned. Since we bought that rule in we very rarely have a great deal of problems with mask lifts but as im sure you know you will also get the odd 12 year old who thinks that he's really hard, runs around screaming 'brap' all day and generally tenda to get banned due to goggle lifts after the 3rd/4th game!Other than that i love my job!!
xxx

 

[evoonline]

yea. the goggle lifting is very rare and we have a ref standing in the dead zone to keep an eye on such goings on. we have a good laugh with the customers but its almost as if some wake up with the sole intention of causing sh!t. again we are top notch as far as safety goes and ive been reffing for yonks so i aint new to any of the problems or solutions bought up. ive had some nasty injuries reffing customers, i'd prefer i get injured then the people im tryin to keep safe. seen some nasty and extremely close calls on losing eyes or possibly even lives but luckily all has worked out. just frustrating i suppose that these people dont come with their heads screwed on, surely they should understand that if a paintball hits their nose, ears, eyes, teeth then they are gonna be in serious bother, christ they moan enough when getting shot in the arse or torso.

 

[Cook$]

I was a bast@rd with the customers. An absolute bast@rd.

 

[Toby MT]

Reading some of these posts are funny s#it im 19 all you need is balls and by sounds of it some of you aint lol.

Yeah you get the odd dik head that can make the day crap, but you deal with it and its sorted. By all means some of them can get completely outta control that there is not much you can do. I been reffing/working at my site for 5 years now and never have i had a problem that cant be dealt with by having a little chat with individuals. I think the worst areas for punters are in London when you get the "chavy ghetto gangsters" as PSG will agree to

As for goggles we are always going to have this problem unless site owners are going to buy 200 sets of goggles every month, which as we all know that aint never going to happen. Tactic i use in safety brief is too shoot the hell out of an empty paint box, always shocks em just watch their jaws drop in disbelief, hell iv even had people walk out and go home once they seen the remains of the box

Stop wine'n and get on with it or dont do it

 

[SwissTony]

Tactic i use in safety brief is too shoot the hell out of an empty paint box, always shocks em just watch their jaws drop in disbelief, hell iv even had people walk out and go home once they seen the remains of the box

That's what we do, I tend to wind the gun up to 300ish fps (re-chronoed after the briefing) so it really sounds good when thumping through the box

Had a group of young girls (13-15yr old) at the site and a stag party group.
The guys looked like they were browning there undercrackers, but the girls didn't seem to bat an eyelid.
They then went to hammer a lot of the guys throughout the day.

 

[Toby MT]

That's what we do, I tend to wind the gun up to 300ish fps (re-chronoed after the briefing) so it really sounds good when thumping through the box.

Only bad bit is when a numpty marshall gives you a weak gun lol, just bounces off the box

 

[Scottya]

I personally enjoy marshalling...

I am lucky where I work because everyone is great!!!

Every marshall gets goggle lifs etc, its a fact of human life... theres no way we can stop it, we somtimes forget that not everyone is a marshall who comes to play ball, they do just "forget" its an easy mistake to make especially when it all goes quiet.

All that means is that its our job to be on top of things and do our best to make sure people know the risks, and also minimise risks... but our job is also to make sure people have a cracking day. I agree safety first, but if people go there and sit out the whole day, not only are they not going to come back, but everyone they meet is going to get crap press about the site.

There are alot of aspects to the job, its alot of responsibility, and its not easy... but I love it!!!