I give you credit for backing down when you felt you could no longer perform at the standard necessary to do the job.
Kudos.
Having said that, given your experience, I'm sure you realize how difficult it is to officiate a competitive match when you have professional coaches, parents with lofty expectations, and (quite often) disrespectful players.
Magnify this at the U17 - U18 and high school boys levels, where huge levels of testosterone motivate them to "play the man" more often than the ball.
It's not a very easy environment to officiate under when everyone but the referee has a vested-interest. There's a lot of decision making that needs to be made (foul recognition / foul selection) in a short period of time.
****Disclaimer - Academy, ECNL and R3PL matches are much easier to officiate where I have found the players to be much more interested in playing the ball, rather than the man. Parents of these higher-level players have been around the block before and seem to be more tolerant of the refs. (Of course, it's usually the very best referees who are officiating these matches).
