Times have changed in recent years with the rules of regulations of the game being constantly updated and more complicated in some areas. More than anybody, these seem to affect the local teams club linesman who probably has not received the benefits of any training and apart from a couple of minutes with the referee prior to kick-off in his local park has no further information available to him.

Long gone are the days when an offside decision was made purely by looking across the park and if a player was goal side of the last defender. This article looks at the different type of linesmen there are at local levels and how the latest offside laws in particular have probably made running the line at any level a much more difficult task.