Method
This study investigated how officials (the referee, assistant referees and the fourth official) in English football were/have been portrayed in newspapers, between 17 October 2015 to 17 January 2016. Only Premier League teams were analysed but included their matches in other domestic competitions (The FA Cup and The Capital One Cup).
When one (or both) Premier League teams were competing in a cup competition the match was recorded, however when neither team was a Premier League club, the match article was ignored.
Only cup matches involving Premier League teams were analysed; including two Premier League teams in a cup competition, or one Premier League and one non-Premier League team in a cup competition (however two non-Premier League …show more content…
This form of analysis provides an objective and quantitative record of events in a player’s performance in a reliable and consistent format/manner (Hughes & Franks, 2007, p. 9). Historically, notational analysis has been utilised to interpret events in a player’s performance across a range of activities, such as movement patterns of dancers (Reilly, 2003, p. 246), shot selection of lawn tennis players (Hughes & Franks, 2008, p. 98) and distance covered of football players (Reilly, 2003, p. 249). This concurs with Hughes and Franks’ (2004, p. 1) work who contend that notational analysis can be used in any discipline, whether sports-based or not, that requires analysis and assessment of performance. As a consequence, notational analysis was not conducted in a traditional sense to examine player performance nor referee performance, but instead it was adapted and applied as a tool to classify verbose quotations that analysed referee performance. In turn, a statistical compilation of data (Hughes, 2003, p. 246) was produced as the ‘objective and quantitative record’ of how they were portrayed in …show more content…
645) cited by (Webb, 2016, p. 6)
notational analysis was conducted regarding how often the referee in each particular match was mentioned, the particularities of the discussion between the commentator and match analyst, as well as the length of time of the discussion concerning the referee. Furthermore, the post match discussion and analysis of the match was also recorded notationally for 30 min following the same method employed during the match.
Notational analysis was conducted by identifying key quotations from each newspaper article that related to the referee performance, and these were classified under the headings ‘positive’, ‘negative’, ‘neutral’ and ‘technical’.
Data Analysis
A chart/table/database was designed using an excel spreadsheet and contained the title of each article plus each classification. The newspaper articles were recorded and quotations that acknowledged the referee’s performance were inductively placed into the relevant category. Match reports with no acknowledgment of the referee were still/also recorded.
Each newspaper article was read with a particular focus on/attention towards, phrases or sentences commenting on the referee
This study investigated how officials (the referee, assistant referees and the fourth official) in English football were/have been portrayed in newspapers, between 17 October 2015 to 17 January 2016. Only Premier League teams were analysed but included their matches in other domestic competitions (The FA Cup and The Capital One Cup).
When one (or both) Premier League teams were competing in a cup competition the match was recorded, however when neither team was a Premier League club, the match article was ignored.
Only cup matches involving Premier League teams were analysed; including two Premier League teams in a cup competition, or one Premier League and one non-Premier League team in a cup competition (however two non-Premier League …show more content…
This form of analysis provides an objective and quantitative record of events in a player’s performance in a reliable and consistent format/manner (Hughes & Franks, 2007, p. 9). Historically, notational analysis has been utilised to interpret events in a player’s performance across a range of activities, such as movement patterns of dancers (Reilly, 2003, p. 246), shot selection of lawn tennis players (Hughes & Franks, 2008, p. 98) and distance covered of football players (Reilly, 2003, p. 249). This concurs with Hughes and Franks’ (2004, p. 1) work who contend that notational analysis can be used in any discipline, whether sports-based or not, that requires analysis and assessment of performance. As a consequence, notational analysis was not conducted in a traditional sense to examine player performance nor referee performance, but instead it was adapted and applied as a tool to classify verbose quotations that analysed referee performance. In turn, a statistical compilation of data (Hughes, 2003, p. 246) was produced as the ‘objective and quantitative record’ of how they were portrayed in …show more content…
645) cited by (Webb, 2016, p. 6)
notational analysis was conducted regarding how often the referee in each particular match was mentioned, the particularities of the discussion between the commentator and match analyst, as well as the length of time of the discussion concerning the referee. Furthermore, the post match discussion and analysis of the match was also recorded notationally for 30 min following the same method employed during the match.
Notational analysis was conducted by identifying key quotations from each newspaper article that related to the referee performance, and these were classified under the headings ‘positive’, ‘negative’, ‘neutral’ and ‘technical’.
Data Analysis
A chart/table/database was designed using an excel spreadsheet and contained the title of each article plus each classification. The newspaper articles were recorded and quotations that acknowledged the referee’s performance were inductively placed into the relevant category. Match reports with no acknowledgment of the referee were still/also recorded.
Each newspaper article was read with a particular focus on/attention towards, phrases or sentences commenting on the referee