samedi 19 avril 2014

Significance Of Linesman Tools In Sports

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.

The need for good match officiating heightened in the aftermath of 1986 World Cup. Diego Maradona, professionally ball-handled the ball in present of thousands of football fanatics and match officials, and scored a goal against England. This was the height of laxity in Soccer as a sport and in turn culminated to changes being made to the officiating of this sport to what it is today.

The handball issue, for the few who know, a handball in soccer is a foul that could earn one a booking. This foul can be explained as the handling, controlling or simply a player being in contact with the ball. Soccer players do the opposite to what basketball or handball players do. Such errors could have been controlled if the linesmen of that time were equipped with the tool, skills and technology that characterizes their counterparts of today.

The best, according to the level of match officiating ought to be English Premier League linesmen. This is simply because they have embraced science and technology in sport. They use sophisticated but yet simple to use tools. They use earpiece technology, the tradition flags, and jerseys to distinguish them from the players. The league has also equipped match officials with off field equipment including goal line technology to detect more than half of balls passing the goal line and minute boards that are easily visible for time purposes.

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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