Members Blogs

At the weekend I read about a local council who had not prepared all of the fields due to be used by local Sunday Leagues for the opening games of their season. Looking back one year my local Sunday League was in the same position. That was nothing to do with the annual switch from cricket to football seen on many council owned fields which is the bane of their lives for many fixture secretaries. For all of the political rhetoric about the creation of a sporting legacy in the wake of the London Olympics, local councils in many areas do not appear to have the necessary funding to organise themselves for the start of the football season. It's not as if the date varies that much from year to year. Many Sunday Leagues kick off in the last...

Gibraltar is now a Uefa member. But how does this affect Gibraltar referees? Adrian Bacarisa, the Head of Refereeing in the country, hopes that match officials from Gibraltar will become international refs in 2016. Read the interview with him from … Continue reading → The post “Gibraltar referees will hopefully go international in 2016″ appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

An Italian referee movie about a corrupt referee has been released during the Venice Film Festival this week. The story tells the story of the rise and fall of corrupt referee Cruciani. The screenplay of Paolo Zucca and Barbara Alberti … Continue reading → The post Italian referee movie about currupt “arbitro” appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

Look at a football field. It looks like a big movie screen. This is theatre. Football combines the strategy of chess. It's part ballet. It's part battleground, part playground. We clarify, amplify and glorify the game with our footage, the narration and that music, and in the end create an inspirational piece of footage. Continue reading...

Craig Bellamy jokingling pours water over referee Lee Probert during the match between Cardiff and Manchester City. The referee was on the sideline talking with the coaches and Bellamy thought it would be funny to empty the water bottle above … Continue reading → The post Bellamy jokingly pours water over referee appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

A suprising thing this weekend while checking the scores of international competitions via a mobile phone. The football app says: Sejad Salihović scores and gets red card – both in the same minute. Later that night I watched the highlights … Continue reading → The post Sejad Salihović scores and gets red card appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

I didn't bother too much with pre-season training last year and across the course of the season my weight shot up. Combined with the inactivity brought on by a period out of work, I touched just over 18St (115kg). I decided to start training on June 3 and while I found it tough, I persevered ... until August 12 that is ... just 3 days before my 50th birthday when I picked up a calf injury. It's responding well to rest and I managed a few minutes jogging on Friday without too much of a reaction. I used to spend time publishing the records of my training from screen prints of my heart rate monitor records. I can now link straight to them and this was one of my more recent sessions. My weight is down now and yesterday I tipped the...

Don't worry I've not fallen for the dubious delights of the game where you can play for five days and not have a winner (cricket). Yesterday at Charlton the referee abandoned the game at half time when he decided the field was waterlogged. Although I've only seen the brief highlights provided on the BBC's Football League Show, there is no doubt the decision was the correct one. When we talk on the Basic Course about conducting a field of play inspection we make reference to very wet fields. Back in October the referee of the Poland vs England World Cup qualifier was seen going back to basics to test out the surface before postponing the game. Yesterday's referee probably went through the same process but as the rain continued to fall...

My eyes were tired, my legs were tired and my patience was tired, but more of that later. After two afternoons of refereeing in a local junior football tournament I feel I'm reasonably well placed to judge whether The FA's Respect Programme is having any effect at the lowest level of the game. I need to go back a few years to when I started refereeing to give the rest of this post some context. My son's age group were moving from 2 teams of 7 a side to 1 team of 11 a side. The league at the time required all clubs to have a qualified referee, so me and another dad were packed off to a working men's club in a nearby village for a few weeks, asked some questions and completed an exam paper. We were then pushed out into the world of...

I refereed my first match of the season. An exciting, challenging AND sportive cup match. Game went up and down – lots of running for me – and ended in a 3-2 win for the home team. When I left … Continue reading → The post Thank you to referee from chairman of low level amateur club appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

The Dutch Referee Blog hopes you’ll have a good start of the 2013-2014 season. Let me know how your first match was. And what do you expect from the next season as a football referee? The post Best wishes for new refereeing season by Dutch Referee Blog appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

It’s 2-0 for Chelsea in the game against Hull. Injury time and a corner kick had been awarded for Chelsea. Frank Lampard swings the ball in and a player heads it towards the goal. Goalie McGregor got the ball, but … Continue reading → The post Goal-line technology works at Chelsea vs. Hull appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

This video is worth watching: Kari Seitz, top female referee from the United States, tells a crowd about recent Women’s World Cup situations. Soccer Referee USA made it available on YouTube for all referees so we can learn from it … Continue reading → The post Kari Seitz talks about game situations in Women’s World Cup appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

Dutch referee Richard Liesveld could not referee his match yesterday because his car got on fire on the way to the football match Roda JC – Vitesse in Dutch top league. The referee’s car burned out completely. Scheidsrechter #Liesveld zal … Continue reading → The post Referee’s car burned out on way to match appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

Referee stats Premier League 2012/2013: referees doing a good job. And did you know that referees do more in-game high speed runs than players? Check out the most remarkable referee statistics from the 2012-2013 Season Review by the organisation of … Continue reading → The post 5 most remarkable referee stats Premier League 2012-2013 appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

The number of rough incidents in Dutch football has decreased with 15% during last season. The total number incidents like beating up a referee or kicking a player who’s lying on the ground is now 412 in the 2012/2013 season. … Continue reading → The post Rough incidents decrease in The Netherlands appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

What would be the ideal referee shirt colour? Due to new possibilities referees sometimes make stange mistakes by picking almost the same referee outfit colour as one of the teams’ shirts. One referee had to change his shirt during the … Continue reading → The post Referee shirt colour: change outfit during first half appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

You think Andrés D’Alessandro is a diver? Not this time. The Argentinian player got fouled by the referee when his team Internacional was playing against Atletico Minero in the Brazilian league. The referee was running his diagonal line but missed … Continue reading → The post Referee fouls player in Brazilian league appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

You got back from a a holiday and want to start training again: this is the perfect guide for first training week after a period of physical inactivity. Also check the 4 tips for pre-season referee training after a holiday. … Continue reading → The post Perfect referee guide for first training week after holiday appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...

5 tips for pre-season referee training after lazy holiday. You might be reluctant to start again after a nice sunny holiday on the beach, but you should get your ass up and try to get back in shape for the … Continue reading → The post 4 tips for pre-season referee training after holiday appeared first on Football: Dutch Referee Blog for match officials. Continue reading...