I see in today's Telegraph that the proposed Referees strike has now been called off. The reasons appear a little dubious. Apparently the young official who called for the strike and had 800 referees agreeing to support it has now said his own county FA (in his case, Manchester) have put some new procedures in place to support a referee if (or, sadly, should that be when?) he or she is assaulted. However, I would probably imagine that the games to be initially affected by the strike were low profile and that many officials did not want to jeopardise their future appointments in professional or semi-pro football. However, I think it was possible that the strike would have garnered greater support and publicity if it had gone ahead but now that it has been cancelled it may just indicate to those players, management and supporters who cannot restrain themselves that it is ok to carry on physically and verbally abusing officials.