Members Blogs

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...

Ive seen this story now twice in the last few days and what a load of pants. So the story being reported that the Referee sent off six players during an FA Youth Cup clash between Newport County and Bath City Academy. The reason being that they were wearing white pants under their shorts whcih could be seen. The Sun rreports this as a little known FA Rule. its not a FA Rule, but a FIFA law. This would then be cascaded down to the FA Rules as a result. This has been in place for many years now. Also there not exactly pants looking at the picture but cycling shorts . However from a practical refereeing point of view. This should have been spotted during the pre match jewelry and equipment checks. If was done and these were not...

Easing in gently ... After stopping training 4 weeks ago because an injury, then being laid up because of a cold/cough and a number of family commitments, I decided to get back out there on Friday. It was time to see just how much my fitness had deteriorated in that time. The answer was LOADS! Neil was also back with us and Paul had a mild strain of his soleus tendon (I know how that hurts) so we decided to jog a lap of our field which is about 670m. We jogged one lap, then took a minute or so rest and repeated the lap. We actually did 6 laps in total and then had a jog/walk to cool down before doing a few calf stretches. Calories 770, average heart rate 86%, maximum intensity 19%, had intensity 43% Continue reading...

My start to the season has been stop-start with various family commitments meaning that I haven't been available on as many Saturdays as I would have liked. They also prevented me from attending Day 2 of a new referee's course back in the middle of August. Professional footballers have suffered from this stop-start nature to their season for a number of years with the introduction of an international window in early September to allow for the playing of "friendlies" and qualifying games for international competitions such as the FIFA World Cup. It seems that the various federations around the world have recognised that no one wants to have an expensive Argentinian international in their team, if he's going to be unavailable for 6...

I was asked elsewhere what my view was on a position being adopted regarding allowing children to wear tracksuit bottoms while playing football. This was my response .. Personally I feel that "child protection" and "health and safety" are often cited not by those who genuinely care about the safety of the child/individual but who have one eye on the possible litigation that may follow if the low frequency/high loss scenario does occur. That is why I support the premise that a child should be exposed to risky situations, but those that can be managed. For example, the law(s of the game) requires me not to allow the wearing of tracksuit bottoms other than by a goalkeeper. If a child wants to wear tracksuit bottoms to play football, I...

It seems that my retirement from refereeing has gone unnoticed in one corner of the world as I got a phone call tonight asking me to referee a pre-season game for a local side. I retired in December 2009! The Secretary of the club was talking to me only a few weeks ago about how it was to be retired from the green stuff, as he is just about done with playing. His phone call came in near the start of the first Sunday League meeting of the new season. He should have been at the meeting so I politely declined his request and suggested he put in an appearance - he did and it saved him £20! Preparations for the new season have gone reasonably well with the fixtures prepared through to the end of the season. Last night saw me make a...

Having spent last Friday and Saturday at Alton Towers, 8 hours walking around on Friday and 7 on Saturday, I turned out early on Sunday to help set up a Basic Course for New Referees. I was providing admin support rather than tutoring which felt a little strange. I still chipped in occasionally and the day went well with a very responsive group. That's more than I can say for many of my colleagues who frequent the Discussion Board of the Referee's Association. Recently there has been an outbreak of disrespect with some posts stepping way over the mark of decency and unlikely to present a good impression of refereeing to any first time visitors. So I'm avoiding the Board and leaving the posters to fight it out among themselves...

Referee’s got a lot to endure during a soccer match. Fans, coaches and players are the biggest critics, even if they’re most of the time not good informed of what actually happened. Dick Jol's twitter photo That’s why the referee organisation of West-Friesland initiated a exhibition match on the 8th of November where former professional referee Dick Jol explains all his crucial decisions publicly via the stadium sound system. “It also forces a referee to declare his decisions in clear and concise terms and, if necessary, give some extra explanation”, says initiator Rodric Leerling in a statement. The referee came up with the idea due to his life in the New York area, where he saw the so-called referee-signal-system in American...

‘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. Referees deserve it once to get some extra attention in the spotlights. States the Dutch FA (KNVB) because of the week of the referee in the Netherlands. “I play a bit with the referee.” Admits Bosnian player Miralem Pjanic before the match against France after accusations from French defender Adil Rami that Pjanic is a cheat. “There now seems to be two types of officials in the game, those who want to be the centre of attention and those who prefer to stay anonymous.” Says Andrew Cole, journalist at The National, an English newspaper in Abu Dhabi. “I think the goal line can...

‘Referees in the media’ will be published each Monday (due to sickness now on Tuesday) on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. “I was the only girl referee on my course, but I enjoyed it. I’ve not had any abuse in the games I have done so far, but it doesn’t bother me. I am quite thick-skinned and I am not frightened to use my cards.” 17-year-old Nadia Young wants to be a top referee. “We want foreign referees to take charge in our matches against teams that are considered to be subscribed to top places.” Says Bulgarian league leader Ludogrets in a statement on their website. The club thinks referees were biased in their two recent matches “We have come here to improve...

Spanish referee Eduardo Iturralde González tackled Valencia player Sergio Canales in the match against Grenada last weekend. Slide tackle referee Valencia vs Granada door greekgoalsellas Should we give him a card? Continue reading...

Polish referee people Pawel Gil did something in Europa League last Thursday I’ve never seen before. He gave a second yellow for wasting time to a player who was wasting time during his substitution. The situation: In the match between Malmö and Austria Wien the away team leads with 1-2. Grünwald from the Austrians has scored one of the goals, but also got booked in second half. He was about being replaced, substitute was ready. Grünwald applauded to the fans one more time, just before Gil runs to the sidelines and gives him his second yellow card. The substitute already ran into the field, but he had to go back to the bench. It’s pretty difficult to find a website where the situation is shown, but I finally found it here (last 12...