Okay, here’s my attempt to document my “referees decisions crossword” practice.
Okay, so I decided to tackle this “referees decisions crossword” thing I saw floating around. Looked kinda fun, a bit nerdy, perfect for a chill afternoon.
First thing I did, naturally, was Google it. Just typed in “referees decisions crossword” and saw a bunch of images and links to crossword puzzle generators. I didn’t want to solve one someone else made, I wanted to make one. Seemed way cooler.
So, I hunted around for a decent, free crossword puzzle maker online. Found a few, tried one that looked pretty straightforward. You basically enter your words and clues, and it tries to generate the crossword grid for you.
The initial plan was simple: think of some common terms related to referee decisions in sports – stuff like “Offside,” “Penalty,” “Foul,” “Goal,” “Timeout”. Easy peasy, right?
Started plugging in the words. “Offside” – “A rule violation in many sports, resulting in a stoppage of play.” Okay, not bad. “Penalty” – “A punishment imposed for breaking a rule.” Getting there.
Then things got tricky. The crossword generator was being a pain. It kept rejecting my words, saying they didn’t fit or that it couldn’t create a valid grid. Turns out, making a good crossword is way harder than it looks.
I messed around with the word list for a good hour, trying different combinations, shortening clues, making them more vague, more specific. At one point I was trying to shoehorn in “VAR” (Video Assistant Referee) but the damn thing just wouldn’t cooperate.
Ended up swapping out a couple of the longer words for shorter, more common ones. Tried to balance the difficulty of the clues – some easy ones, some that required a bit of sports knowledge.
Finally, after much tweaking and swearing at my laptop screen, I got a somewhat decent crossword grid generated. It wasn’t perfect, but it was passable.
Downloaded the thing as a PDF. Looked over it. Realized a couple of the clues were kinda crap, so I went back into the editor and tweaked those.
Then, just for kicks, I tried solving it myself. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be! There were a couple of clues that even I struggled with for a minute. Guess that means I did a halfway decent job?
Anyway, that was my afternoon. Made a “referees decisions crossword.” Learned that crossword puzzle design is an art form. Would I do it again? Maybe. If I’m REALLY bored.
