Question Number: 19754

Law 8 - Start and Restart of Play 8/17/2008

RE: rec Under 12

a.p. of Pembroke, USA asks...

do you do a coin toss for U8?

Answer provided by Referee Gary Voshol

I do. I even have the captains shake hands and introduce themselves to each other. You have to ease them through the procedure a little. Especially when you ask the winner of the toss, 'Which end of the field do you want?' You may have to prod them a little: 'Do you want to stard in this end where your team already is, or do you want to switch sides?'

One time I had the opportunity to ref a U6 game. (I was coming off an ankle sprain and wanted to see if I was up to doing games again; since the coaches normally ref U6's themselves, they were happy to have a volunteer referee show up in uniform and with whistle and everything!) I started that game off by asking a couple of the players near me, 'Who knows how to do heads and tails?' I nominated him for the captain to make the call.

Answer provided by Referee Keith Contarino

Unless there is some strange local prohibition of performing a coin toss prior to the game as required by the laws Of The Game, I would always do this before every U8 game I officiated