Admit it. You've snarled at him, cursed him, laughed hollowly at his pitiful stupidity. Maybe you have cocked a fist at him or undergone an out-of-body experience, astonished to find yourself not beside your kid in Row 38, Seat 16 but standing at a wire, foaming at the mouth and shouting passionately at a man whose name you don't even know and who can't hear you anyway. You have driven home obsessed by him, lain awake to fixate upon the neatness, the fussy notebook, that aggravating smile. Those polished boots.

You know that the sole reason God put him on this earth, gave him a life, was so that he could piss you off. And boy, does he excel at it. Sometimes, you have even tried to understand him, empathise with him, tell yourself that he is just doing his job. But then your blood is boiling and he does something else, misses a detail or turns a blind eye or does that silly hand wave that makes you clench your jaw or something equally idiotic and all at once, you're seething again and you are convinced that it is a conspiracy and that this guy that you could seriously strangle is just a born bastard and he enjoys this, his pleasure is your anguish. And so you scream, past caring, beyond self-respect, to no one in particular, "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS F****** REF".

And then you immediately and suddenly feel better about life . . .

What do referees do when they are not reffing? They tell us they are real people, with mortgages and dodgy CD collections and a fondness for Kit Kats and everything but we players and fans are reluctant to believe them. It is more plausible that after a match at Lansdowne Road or the local park or gym, someone comes along and takes down the flags and the nets and then locks them up in a broom cupboard along with the referee. And there he sits, polishing his watch, whistle in his mouth, always ready.

It is best that we separate referees along those lines, see them as a breed apart. How else to explain, apart from masochism, why someone would voluntarily elect to stand in a field, often in front of 60,000 people and spend more than an hour making decisions that will, inevitably, displease people. Decisions that will make people mad. The best he can hope for is that nobody notices him, the worst is that the crowd will, in time-honoured fashion, sing insults to him.

"I love it," says Tommy Sugrue, one of the GAA's most distinguished officials. "Just the feeling that when a game goes well that you contributed to it. Of all the games I did, the Derry-Dublin All-Ireland semi-final in 1993 stands out, there was such a beautiful flow to the game. A few early calls settled the players and after that, they just played. Also, the Derry-Down game in 1994, the so-called game of the decade stands out."

The "why" hit rugby referee Alain Rolland recently after he officiated at a Leicester-Saracens match, a classic, with the crowd close to the touchline and everybody - players, management, kids, just thrilled by the quality of the match that they were producing.

"And afterwards I was warming down and thinking, yeah, this is it, this is why. It is the sense that you are helping a game evolve into something special. And the thing is, the perfect compliment is when you are not noticed, when people forget you are there. It is the opposite of being a player when you strived for attention, for the headlines."

Last weekend, Denise Rice, a Superleague referee and one of Ireland's FIBA ranked officials, found herself sitting on a train back from Cork after reffing a particularly poor basketball match.

"At times like that, you wonder why you bother," she says. "But when the games are good and the players are enjoying it and its close, reffing is thoroughly enjoyable."

Nobody refs for money. Nobody refs to try and improve their self-esteem. Nobody refs for the cool uniforms. Nobody refs for praise. Sport is full of stories about the hassle that whistle blowers endure. The problem is reaching crisis point in the English Premiership. Graham Poll received hate mail after a recent inflammatory match between Liverpool and Arsenal.

David Elleray has a panic button in his house. In 1999, Hugh Dallas was cut open by a coin fired from the crowd. And that is at the highest level. A number of years back, Denis Cunningham was reffing a park game and found himself confronted by a player he had sent-off hurtling towards him. In a car. The most astonishing thing about that incident is that it wasn't without precedent. The examples are myriad. Think of Alex Higgins or the now celebrated John McEnroe footage from the 1981 Wimbledon tournament. The public loved Superbrat because he made happen what is a fantasy for most sports fans: he forced the referee to sit and listen to his rant.

But there is a cultural tolerance of referee-abuse that filters through all sports at all levels. Sugrue remembers a match in Ruislip in 1992 between T∅r Connail Gaels and Lavey being of such intensity that he was frightened for his safety leaving the ground. Rice was followed out to a car park after a game and verbally abused by a player using appalling language.

"The referee is an easy target," says Sugrue. "In my own sport, there is a attitude that the ref is basically there to be roared at, that he is a nuisance. You have to have a thick skin. People forget that without referees, there would not be games. But the abuse and intimidation is a problem and the only way to redress it is to teach kids from day one to respect the ref. Mistakes will be made undoubtedly but referees should not be hounded to the extent they are."

There is no such thing as a born referee. It is a calling. Sugrue once likened it to the priesthood. Rolland, a former Irish senior international scrumhalf, started reffing because the appointed official failed to show. Obeying the old maxim that you should try everything once except Scottish folk dancing, he gave it a go. He was as amazed as anyone to find he had a gift for it and his ascent from Sunday morning cowpat games to internationals has been remarkable. He laughs now when he considers his former relationship with referees.

"I was a nightmare. The slag is I have been reffing for 16 years but only had a whistle for three. But it helped because I know what annoyed me as a player.

"So I always try and communicate with the players, let them know what they can and can't get away with, let them know the way I'm thinking. That diffuses a lot of the attention."

Rugby is unique in that despite its aggressive nature, respect for the referee is paramount. It just doesn't pay to argue, let alone abuse. Rolland has no unpleasant experiences to report and is oblivious to crowd attitudes.

"If you are doing your job, you shouldn't even notice them. Anyway, people pay enough in; they are perfectly entitled to shout whatever they like as far as I'm concerned."

Rice, despite her ranking, feels she has to work extra hard for credibility because of her gender. Incoming Americans, accustomed to male officials, often look at her in open amazement when she turns up to ref Superleague games, unsure whether to shake her hand or try and get her phone number. Last year, she became the first female referee to work an IBA Cup final and she also officiates at FIBA games in Europe. Abroad, there is no dissent but here it is a regular hazard of the job.

"I think a lot of it stems from just watching behaviour in other sports. Most of the time it is perfectly fine and you do understand that sometimes players are just frustrated with themselves, they are letting off steam."

Athletes, Sugrue points out, tend to forget what would happen if there was no referee. Games would be reduced to anarchy in shorts.

"You could call 60 fouls and be castigated in the papers the next day for ruining a game. But one of the first rules is that we protect the players. People want to see a flowing game, but if teams are belting one another, are you supposed to just let it go and have a fella end up in hospital?"

At heart, refs turn up for sports events for the precise reasons that fans and players do; for the love of the game. That they themselves will never be loved is not an issue. The perfect referee is invisible. All too often, though, they are in our sightlines. The man in black.

Besides officiating, referees are useful psychological props. Name the last losing manager to praise the brilliance of the referee?

Losing teams always have the consolation of telling one another that they would have won except they got screwed by the ref. And almost any sports fan can convince themselves that all the worlds woes are down to one thing: the referee.

As the sports year winds down, the losers are licking their wounds and the glory-getters are getting shined up for the awards ceremonies. Nobody hates the referee in the off-season; he is just forgotten about.

Until of course, he next appears at your ground or gym, all prim and refereeish. And you know there is something about him, that he is destined to ruin your day. You feel your temple throbbing and so you take deep breaths and murmur: "Refs are people too, refs are people too."

Then the whistle blows.