It’s not them. It’s us.
Sometimes when I write a Substack post, my partner says I’m a killjoy. She says I take a fun topic and analyse the joy out of it. Today could be such an occasion.
Trigger warning: I’m about to lampoon a cherished Australian tradition.
Every week, without fail, I hear someone blaming the umpires. Doesn’t matter which game, which team, or what happened. If the scoreline is close or the stakes are high, there’s always someone ready to point the finger at the folks in fluro.
And I get it. I’ve been there too. I’ve groaned at soft free kicks, raged at missed holding-the-ball calls, and muttered darkly about incompetence and conspiracy. But the deeper I look — and the more I listen — the more obvious it becomes: it’s not the umpire’s fault. It’s us. We have a psychology of blame, and umpires are the perfect targets.
An Impossible Job
Let’s start with the basics. In sport, umpiring Australian Rules Football is one of the toughest gigs. The game is chaotic and full of deception — players ducking, faking, subtly shoving, and constantly appealing. Umpires make hundreds of calls every match. No replays. No support staff in earpieces. Just one human brain, one set of eyes, and a limited view of a game that’s always changing.
And yet, somehow, they get the vast majority of calls right. Not that you’d know it listening to the crowd. Yes, a few errors happen — maybe five or six per game. But over the four quarters, they even out. Over a season, they’re meaningless. They’re not biased. They’re not corrupt. They’re just human. Like the full forward who shanks a set shot. Like the midfielder who hand-passes to a ruckman. Like the coach who forgets to man up the opposition’s best player in the last minute. Mistakes happen. Umpires just have the misfortune of having no allies.
It begs the question — why would anyone become an umpire in the first place? But in a world where Barry from Berwick thinks he sees more from behind the goals than four trained officials on the field, maybe delusion is just part of the charm.
The Big One That Cost Us the Game
Now, I’ll admit: sometimes an umpiring mistake does influence the result. My own team sadly lost the 2019 Grand Final after a truly baffling decision. I remember it vividly — and yes, it still stings. But if I’m honest, that call was just one part of a much bigger mess. Before that, we’d had at least a dozen decisions go our way. We’d made around twenty mistakes in the last quarter alone. And then there was the usual chaos — slippery turf, oval ball, cruel bounces. The kind of luck only a footy fan could see as personal. That one call might’ve been the final straw. But the pile was already high. And most of it was ours.
Some argue, quite reasonably, that games should be decided by performance and coaching, not by umpiring errors. And I agree. In principle, that’s what sport is meant to be. But footy isn’t a lab experiment. It’s messy, unpredictable, and unflatteringly human. Mistakes by players and coaches are tolerated — even expected — because they’re ours. Umpiring mistakes, being external, feel unfair. But they’re no less random than a dodgy bounce, a gust of wind, or a last-minute cramp. The game has always involved chance. And honestly, that’s part of the excitement. The idea that two teams could be so evenly matched that it all comes down to one flick of chaos — that’s not an insult to the sport. That’s the sport.
So Why Do We Blame Umpires? (The Psychology)
Blaming umpires isn’t just a bad habit — it’s classic psychology. It’s ego-protection: blaming someone else is easier than admitting our team — or we — blew it. Then there’s projection: we feel powerless or frustrated, and we need someone to wear that pain. It’s selective memory: we remember the free kick against us in the last minute — not the dodgy one we got in the second quarter. It’s narrative addiction: “we were robbed” is a more satisfying story than “we made errors and ran out of steam.” It’s fear of randomness: we want the world to make sense. A villain is more comforting than chaos. It’s tribalism: the other team is the enemy. The umpire, if not with us, must be against us. It’s social contagion: everyone’s yelling around us, so we join in, and suddenly it feels righteous.
And perhaps the most human trait of all: we love having a common enemy. Few things bring a crowd together like outrage, and umpires are ideal villains — always there, visible, unarmed, and unable to defend themselves. It’s not just easier to hate them — it creates a bond. Blaming the ump is one of the last socially acceptable ways to scapegoat collectively, a kind of tribal ritual driven by rage.
The Cost of the Blame Game
This kind of thinking has a cost. And it’s not just a few hot-headed rants on game day. It spoils our enjoyment of the game. It allows our team to avoid responsibility. It teaches our kids that failure is someone else’s fault. And it makes us — frankly — a bit stupid. There is something noble in accepting the game as it is: messy, unfair, glorious. Blaming umpires? That’s just lazy.
Let’s set some rules. One free spray at the umpire per quarter — that’s your allowance. One “we were robbed” claim per season. That’s it. Before you open your mouth, pause. Count your team’s missed tackles. Remember that dropped mark in the goal square. Ask yourself: What am I really upset about?
What We Do in Footy, We Do in Life
Why should we care? The way we blame umpires reflects how we often approach life. We blame the last event. We pick the most obvious person. We ignore the long chain of choices, mistakes, and random happenings that led to a moment. And we find a scapegoat — someone to wear the pain. It doesn’t just distort sport — it distorts reality. It results in unfairness, broken relationships, and poor decision-making. Whether it’s an umpire, a partner, a colleague, or a stranger on the street, we often judge quickly and blame without understanding the full picture.
Final Whistle: Maybe It’s Not Them. Maybe It’s Us.
So next time you hear the whistle blow and feel the urge rising, stop. Ask yourself: Did the umpire cost us the game? Or am I just outsourcing my pain? Because maybe, just maybe, the most unreliable judge on the ground… is you.
