Members Blogs

With the Euro’s kicking off on Friday, Graham Poll has put together a rundown of the Referee‘s who will take charge of the fixtures doing the tournament. With some new names its worth a look, and with the first set of fixtures due out tomorrow. It’s a chance to learn a bit more about the man who the English press will slaughter when a decision goes against England. Link to the run down. Related Articles #Euro2012 Match Officials (the-referee.com) Video: Spanish ref does a Graham Poll (Villarreal 1-1 Real Madrid) (offthepost.info) Filed under: Euro2012 Tagged: Graham Poll, referee, soccer, UEFA Continue reading...

On Saturday, Google went along to Wembley to capture it to add to Street View. Cant help to think would have been more fun to ahve done it while there was a match actually on at the same time. Filed under: youtube Tagged: Google, googlestreetview Continue reading...

During Saturdays West Ham vs Aston Villa match Kevin Nolan scored the hammers first goal back in the Premier League. However initally it looked like it was going to be rulled out as the assistant signaled for an offside. However Mike Dean spotted the flick on by the Villa defender which allowed the West Ham player not to be offside. Remeber it is not an offence to be in an offside position alone. Related Articles West Ham beats Villa in PL (iol.co.za) West Ham1-0 Aston Villa: Match report, pictures and video highlights (thesun.co.uk) Premier League Preview: West Ham – Aston Villa (goal.com) Filed under: Premier League, Season 2012/13 Tagged: Aston Villa, Aston Villa F.C., Kevin Nolan, Mike Dean, Premier League, Villa, West...

If you follow me on twitter then you will know this from a few weeks ago. If not a couple of weeks ago I got confirmation from The FA that I am now a level 1 FA Tutor. This means I can now work on the courses for new referees. It's a big learning curve and I've now worked on four different courses. The FA take a lot of stick but areas like this do t get covered by the press as positive news is boring. When I passes in 93 it was an over head projector, one video tape and the instructor smoked a pipe. The day of a two day course i worked one the other week was more than 50% on a football pitch with a 45 minute video session on advantage. This was only reduced as we ha to do a session on report writing which has to be classroom and a bit...

FIFA have confirmed that this years confederations cup will use goal line technology provided by GoalControl-4D. This video shows how the technology will work. To be honest, not inspired at all. The examples shown in the clip dont need technology, what it should show is the ability to report on those really tight decisions. Related Articles FIFA picks German goal-line technology firm for Brazil (itv.com) FIFA Names GoalControl As Preferred Goal-Line Technology Ahead of World Cup 2014 (epltalk.com) Michel Platini insists goal-line technology ‘too expensive’ to use in Champions League (metro.co.uk) FIFA picks GoalControl goal-line technology for 2014 World Cup (cbc.ca) The post Goal Line Technology – Video showing its use appeared...

FIFA have confirmed that this years confederations cup will use goal line technology provided by GoalControl-4D. This video shows how the technology will work. To be honest, not inspired at all. The examples shown in the clip dont need technology, what it should show is the ability to report on those really tight decisions. Related Articles FIFA picks German goal-line technology firm for Brazil (itv.com) FIFA Names GoalControl As Preferred Goal-Line Technology Ahead of World Cup 2014 (epltalk.com) Michel Platini insists goal-line technology ‘too expensive’ to use in Champions League (metro.co.uk) FIFA picks GoalControl goal-line technology for 2014 World Cup (cbc.ca) The post Goal Line Technology – Video showing its use appeared...

Hawkeye will take a big step in its testing when it will be used during the England vs Belgium friendly at Wembley on June 2nd. However the Referee will not have acess to the system and will not know the outcome of any responses. This will be used as a real test of the sytem by the scientists behind it. This is a continuation of the Hawkeye testing which was used at the Hampshire senior cup final at St Marys recently. Related articles ENGLISH FOOTBALL: Referees and The FA (rinolee.wordpress.com) Years Too Late (the-beautiful-game.org) Goal Line Technology: Do We Need It? (full-timewhistle.com) Goal-line technology first in UK (bbc.co.uk) Goal Line Technology Finally Set To Be Agreed By FIFA (caughtoffside.com) Carter coy on...

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: assessments, Football, referee, soccer Continue reading...

This week has been a odd week. I’ve spent the best part of it manually configuring our new android smartphones for work. Fun when it’s yours not when it’s someone else’s. So I’ll be glad to get out tomorrow when I’ll be assessing. It’s my first one of the new marking season and using the new forms for this level. Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: assessments, Football, referee, soccer Continue reading...

The Premier League referee's have been turned into cartoons for the Get on with Game Kids campaign. The get on with the game campaign is a extension of the respect campaign. With the focus on Kids its helping try and explain to children why you need Referee's and should show them respect. However this does not just focus on football, but uses football to educate children on everyday respect. Its well worth visiting the site, even if its just to guess the Ref :) Link to Mirror Story Link to Get on with the Game Kids Continue reading...

Over the weekend there has been the shocking news coming from Germany of the attempted suicide by Babak Rafati the Bundesliga Referee. Details are not clear, however his assistatns were concerend that he was 15 minutes late for their pre match meeting at the hotel. When they entered his room following asstiance from hotel staff he was found in the bath having cut his wrists. The match he was due to take charge of Cologne and Mainz, was abdonded and rightly so. While this is worrying news on its own. I wonder what the issue with German football is. Over recent years there has been the suicide of Robert Enke, the German national team keeper. THere has also been Breno the Bayern Munich defender who set fire to his own home. Also...

Some how the fact that ESPN was free this weekend in the UK escaped me until this afternoon. On finding this out I quickly turned over and caught the back of Genoa vs Lazio. Amazingly the first thing I saw on turning on was this challenge. (Not the greatest video in the world ill admit) Now I don't get to see a lot of Serie A but how the heck was that not a red card. Now you can argue the Referee didn't see it, but he decides to play the advantage so in effect acknowledges there was contact. The rest of the highlights if you want to watch Continue reading...

Saturday was in theory the highest level of football I will get to Ref on this season. Div 1 of our local supply league. The home side was new to this level of football where the away side had been in the division for a few years. The first half was straight forward enough. Home side leading 1-0 at the break. I had not a great deal to do other than manage corners, where the same two players decided to stand with the keeper blocking him. I decided on the 3rd one to pull the two players out and have a word. This worked to an extent as the defending player switched for the rest of the half. The second half though was a bit more eventful. After about 5 minutes of the half, two players had gone in for a challenge. As one got up and...

Reblogged from Freebody, Free Speech: Originally featured on FootballFanCast.com in 2011 The talk of referees in football has never been a positive one, especially this season with Sir Alex Ferguson facing a 5-match ban for comments he made about match officials. But the men in black (or whatever colour they’re wearing these days) have a history in the game, without them football games would not be able to work and the rules they are using are in place to make the game better. Read more… 418 more words Great Piece on Ken Aston - Football Legend. Continue reading...

Good luck if your taking your Supply/Contrib fitness test this sunday. Hopefully this weather will ease up for the morning to allow you to pass. It may hurt but just think you can enjoy the euros knowing that you’ve passed. Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Fitness Continue reading...

Last Thursday saw my season get under way with a cup game between two reserve sides. The first challenge came before we kicked off. In this league these two teams are possibly the furthest apart mileage wise at around 100 miles round trip. The home team didn't have floodlights, so a 6.30 kick off was on the cards. Unfortunately the away side didn't fully get to the ground until 6.40 so we didn't kick off until 6.50. For a league game I could have reduced the half length but for a cup game it must be 90 minutes. However luckily if it was to finish as a draw there was no extra time just straight penalty's! The other minor challenge before the game was the fact we had no penalty spots. Given the fact that this game maybe would need...

Tanks to @willpare for this newspaper article Filed under: Uncategorized Continue reading...

During FIFA’s medical conference in Budapest the topic of drug testing Referees for performance enhancers was discussed. I’ll be honest im surprised the FIFA officials aren’t subject to this already. Given the pressure on the officials and the physical demand I wouldn’t be surprised if one failed such a test. FIFA chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak told delegates on the second day of the FIFA medical conference in Budapest. ‘We have started to discuss this and this is something for the future which will be discussed to include possibly an anti-doping programme for referees. ‘We do not have an indication that this is a problem but this is something we have to look at. Related Articles FIFA prepares to select anti-corruption officials...

Just seen this on the guardian site, and made me laugh.. FIFA 12 demo fail compilation!

Weve seen these many times before, however its allways impressive when someone actually pulls one of these off. Filed under: Uncategorized Continue reading...