For my weekly writing spot on this site, see the One-Minute Mystic, with a new meditation posted every Monday. Also see The Village, the story of Misty Longings, England's most beautiful village, posted episode by episode earlier this year.       The Football Association faces a breakdown of discipline in the game. Apparently no one respects authority any longer, but the worst offenders are not the players on the pitch; but the parents on the side lines! The FA launched their Respect campaign at the beginning of the season, to combat unacceptable behaviour – both on the pitch and from the touchline. As the minister for sport Gerry Sutcliffe said, "Passion is at the heart of the game, but being passionate doesn't mean disrespecting people." Fine words, which may be true in heaven; but they aren't true on earth, where passion always leads to severe disrespect. And nowhere is this more apparent than at amateur football matches. I remember when I played regularly, and returned home with such gashes on my legs that my daughter understandably enquired after my sanity. The trouble now, however, is that the referees themselves are blowing the whistle on poor behaviour – by giving up. Such is the level of abuse and pressure from the sidelines in youth games that many referees feel there are both better and safer things to be doing with their spare time. This is a serious development for the grass roots of the game, for while a game can be played without skill, it can't be played without a referee. You may have the kit, the pitch, the desire and the players – but without the man-in-the-middle, experience shows you don't have a game. In fact there's now an amusing FA film clip up on Youtube in which players attempt to play without a referee; with disastrous consequences. It's like a sporting version of Lord of the Flies – all fights, arguments, fouls and anarchy. And it's mainly the parents who are to blame; screaming parents on the touch line, investing their hopes in their children; parents incubating fantasies they need their children to fulfil. Teachers well know the pushy parents who insist their child must succeed endlessly; or the tunnel-vision parents who constantly imagine their child has been misled, misunderstood or picked on. In the same way, referees are discovering the sporting fantasists – parents who believe their child is Christiano Ronaldo, with a God-given right to win every week. And so they shout abuse at the referee, and threaten him in the car park after the match. Worse by far, however, is the more discreet abuse at play here; whereby the parent imposes their own needs on their child. Referees can leave; children can't. As far as referees are concerned, it was ever thus – as revealed in the song "Everything stops for tea", written in the 1930s: Oh, they may be playing football, and the crowd is yelling "Kill the referee!" But no matter what the score, when the clock strikes four, everything stops for tea. My own worst experience of football violence was when my theological college played another one. Before the game, our hosts insisted we stand in the centre circle and pray together. Never again; what followed was true savagery. More writings © Simon Parke