Members Blogs

‘Referees in the media’ will be published each Monday on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. This is the route for me to my personal destination which is officiating in the World Cup and Asian Cup. I think I’m on my way. Chinese referee Wang Di after his promotion to the Asian referees Development Group. “The referees should get much more help because their mistakes are seen all over television.” Uefa president Michel Platini favours use of goal-line assistants. At the same moment he also stated that he’s against the use of technology in football. “I will always remember Giulio not only as a great referee, a competent and passionate administrator, and a respected...

After England beat Spain 1-0, they could lay claim to being world champions. Well they could if Spain hadn't already lost since the world cup final to Argentina. The unofficial world champion works in the same way as boxing match, in that the winner takes the title. Its surprising how many times though the title has changed hands in the World Cup Final. Also maybe its the only chance Scotland have of being "World Champions" holding the title 86 times! For the record, Argentina then went and lost to Japan who are the reigning unofficial champions Continue reading...

I made the longish trip (100 miles round trip) through 3 Counties to yesterday's game and got a warm welcome from the home club. It was a new venue for me, although I'd seen the home team away a couple of times. The game was scrappy and the team in black did ok. This morning I averaged up the mileage by travelling just over a mile to watch a County Trophy game. he home team scored after less than 33 seconds but took 33 minutes to add to their tally. The score was 7-1 by the time I got bored, wet and cold so decided to head off home. Tonight I put together the next 4 weeks fixtures for my local Sunday League and sent out some correspondence on behalf of the District FA, as I'm collating the results for Round 3 of their competitions...

Make your way to http://mobro.co/BrianHamilton to make a donation Continue reading...

I tweeted this a few days ago, but wanted to capture this on here. This is a shocking story of a Referee who has been left blind in one eye following an assault. Police have arrested the moron who did this to the 21 year old. As much as The FA try with the respect campaign situations like this, and the incited with the Redditch player will still happen, and its no wonder in Oldham the Refs went on strike. The only "positive" and that is by far the wrong word is in situations like this the police become involved and the idiots get handled correctly, and not with a fine and a ban. Continue reading...

If your lucky as a Referee to go out on the field supported by two neutral assistant referee's, you have to have complete confidence in them. You may never have worked together before, but after 10 minutes you need to have faith in them. A good assistant can make a referee look great, a bad one can make him look incompetent. A brave assistant can help a referee when he maybe is about to make a mistake. This week in the Europa League match there was an incident where Stuart Atwell gave a penalty. However his assistant assistant referee (the guy by the goal) stepped in and appeared to inform him that it wasn't a penalty. This meant he restarted with a drop ball. A situation like that you have to be confident that the assistant is...

After admiring this fund raising effort from afar for a couple of years, I've decided to become involved. If you feel like donating some cash to help tackle men's health problems, notably testicular and prostate cancer (which contributed to my grandfather's death), then shuffle to the address below and drop some pennies off for my slug balancing act. http://mobro.co/BrianHamilton Thanks (Day 3 below) Continue reading...

A player must get a yellow card if he removes his shirt or covers his head with his shirt. Even if he already got a yellow card. But there’s some extra information in Law 12 in the Laws of the game. It’s all in case of the ‘celebration of a goal’ (the name of the header on page 116). What will you do if a player puts of his shirt when he walks to the sideline because he’ll be substituted? Would you do the same as the referee below? Player involved is Samuel Inkoom from Dnjepr Djnepropetrovsk in the game against Karpaty. Continue reading...

Things have been a bit quiet around here recently, so I thought id give a quick update on what been going on. Well from a football point of view not a massive amount, well compared to normal. So if you read this, you will know that I decided during the summer to step down to Level 5. Unfortunately due to even more work commitments that weren't expected when I made that decision Ive actually had to put active Refereeing on hold. This wasn't something I wanted to do, however I just cant do everything, as much as I try. If I can rectify one of the time commitments I hope to return but I cant see that happening at the moment, unless I can strike lucky with a major change (new job closer to home). However Ive not complexly...

or Piss take which ever you prefer. Just found this while looking for any evidence of the rumour that Steve Claridge has been playing in non matching boots for Gosport Borough Continue reading...

It's been another crazy fortnight in the world of football. Last week I squeezed in an assessment for a referee aspiring to move up to Supply football, Week 4 of the new referee's course a Supply League assessment and a Supply League Assessors meeting. The game on Tuesday was interesting as the referee decided to delay the kick off to allow a huge thunderstorm to pass by before getting the game under way. The rain had been coming down hard for an hour before kick off and just as the referee led the two teams out, it stopped. The game opened at a frantic pace with the home side going 3-0 down in the first 13 minutes. They fought back but finished up losing 4-3. Tuesday's reports have been finished and e-mailed. I've prepared a report...

In short, the tweak on Sunday has turned out to be just that ... a tweak. Unfortunately I have picked up a throat infection and cannot train. Oh well, off to Alton Towers on Friday!!! Continue reading...

Read the signs ... With tomorrow's local Community Shield game and my second assessing commitment of the season on Tuesday, together with a two day family trip to Alton Towers on Friday/Saturday, I would only have the opportunity to train twice this week. One of those opportunities was this morning. Paul had hoped to join me but had a prior engagement at the Leeds Dog Trust Open Day where he got Bob from! I should have have recognised all the warning signs and decided to go back to sleep. Firstly my wife said she was going to walk the dog on the field we use for training. Last time she did that while I was training, I strained my Achilles; sign #1. The heavens opened and we had a long and sustained downpour; sign #2. My wife decided...

Happy feet ... My new trainers seem a lot bigger than their predecessors even though they're the same brand. My wife says they make my feet look smaller. Either way I got through training tonight with the minimum of fuss, apart from feeling heavy legged and it being a little too warm for comfort. After the warm up we kept it simple by running for 2 minutes and walking for 1 minute, repeated 4 times (total running time 8 minutes), then took a 2 minute rest before repeating the same exercise but running anti clockwise instead of clockwise. A rest of 2 1/2 minutes this time and then we repeated the same 4 runs again. With the season starting on Saturday and a few other things lined up, it's going to be difficult to train regularly over...

Having thrown away my trainers last night because of the smell, I set off shopping and found these little beauties (Nike T-Lite IX) in the Direct Sports sale. Continue reading...

And into the bin they go ... It's been a busy couple of days as the start of the season approaches. I tidied up a presentation intended as an introduction to the assessment process and sent it on to someone who might use it. Yesterday saw the arrival of my first assessment appointments of the season so they were accepted this morning. I also did some work on getting the marks together for submission to the County FA in support of our local promotion candidates. I also squeezed in notification of my very limited availability for assessing in September and an update on some administration for a forthcoming new referee's course. This course is slightly different for me as it's the first where I won't actually be delivering any training...

You may remember a few years ago Cameroon were meant to wear the below kit. However FIFA decided to spoil the fun and made them wear a black shirt underneath as the Laws of the Game say there must be sleeves Yesterday while working on a new referee's course, there was a lady's match taking place at the same time. It was spotted very quickly that one of the players was wearing a sleeves shirt. What appeared to be the case was that she had in fact rolled them up and the shirt wants sleeveless. However it caused a bit of debate about the right thing to do. Opionin was that there should be sleves so the player should be asked to roll them down. How would you have handled it? Continue reading...

Check out the ball spinning antics of this Assistant Referee. Always good to keep a low profile! Continue reading...

A crafty attempt to distract an opponent during the Flamengo vs America Mineiro game Seen via Off the post Continue reading...

As part of Mars tie up with the FA as part of the Just Play initiative they have released the following video Continue reading...