Members Blogs

During last nights non league show there was a discussion about an incident that took place this weekend. The incident being discussed was that of a player leaving the pitch to use the toilet and re entering the field of play. the referee then cautioned him. The ref should count himself lucky at least he went to the loo. Last April I refereed a game in a step 6 league. During a lengthy stoppage two players behind my back relived themselves. I didn't see this but mr assesor did. He observed one leave the pitch, urinate the re enter. The other apparently didn't leave the pitch and urinated on the pitch. Mr assesor put a call in to the FA during the game and thru advised they would expect the following Player leaving the pitch and...

‘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. “Tell them and train them to understand that modern day refereeing involves a host of extremely technical skills. It demands a certain level of academic flair, high physical fitness, strong mental and psychological personalities and also excellent communication skills.” An advice to all Asian fitness instructors by Toshio Utsumi, Fifa fitness instructor. “If he has seen it again, all he has to say is, ‘I’m sorry’.” Says former Dutch international top referee Mario van der Ende about Kevin Blom’s performance and last minute penalty kick call against Scotland after a dive. “When...

With the thought of the sea gently lapping against my toes as I polish off another ice lolly, I agreed to Paul's hint that we should train tonight. It was supposed to be yesterday morning but holiday shopping took preference. Good job really as I was still a pair of decks shoes, some spending money and sun cream short of packing. Packing started last night after I sat ironing t-shirts and shirts. It was only after 2 hours that I decided to count how many I'd done and found I had enough t-shirts to stay 3 weeks, so some went back in the cupboard. I wish I could have hidden with them tonight as Paul and I decided to replicate our session from Friday but with a little bit of extra warm up work. We did our 6 laps of our field under...

Back in May, I was Course Leader on Basic Course for New Referees and the local ITV news programme (Calendar) wanted to film the course for part of a short series of specials on refereeing in grassroots football. I was interviewed for part of the programme and the interview was broadcast on Thursday. The clip can be seen here. Thanks to Umar for finding the clip. On Friday I was advised that my application for the role of Moderator on the Referee's Association Discussion Board (Forum) had been accepted, so that's something new to look after. Also on Friday I was notified of a late addition to our lowest division in the local Sunday League. As Fixture Secretary, I had to revise the division's fixtures for the season. This came on the...

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%

Tuesday morning I woke with a sore and swollen right knee. No idea why or how. Unfortunately after a couple of hours it wasn't going to ease and I had to come of a game I was due to ref that night. By Thursday it hadn't eased and so of to the phsio. No sign of a sprain but a muscle that runs along my thigh between my hip and knee was tight. She manipulated it and stretched it and it eased. She gave me a series of stretches to do to ease it off. However she suggested it wouldn't be strong enough come Saturday. So another game lost. It's feeling better and I've another appointment this Thursday. So should be back in action next weekend.

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 games...

Yeah, the first match in The Hague is scheduled for next Saturday. For eight years I’ve combined refereeing at a club with playing myself, but now I’ll just focus on refereeing. KNVB, the Dutch FA, has scheduled two matches for me. The first one will be a youth match in Katwijk. I’m really looking forward to it. You can follow remarkable things of this fresh career on this blog, but this will not replace the interviews as I’ve posted before. Waiting for the blog: interview with top referee in Trinidad and Tobago, Dutch referee coach in Africa and few more. Suggestions for interviews are always welcome. Oh, here’s the appointment. First appointment of me in The Hague area

I’ve been looking for referee books and found Bewegend, Merk & More about experiences of German retired match official Markus Merk. It has the best bookmark ever (at least for a referee book): a yellow card I still have to read it, but just wanted to show you. Recently I also found out the Royal Library in The Hague (where I live) had pretty much refereeing books in different languages. I’m very interested in them, so please tell me about good referee books you’ve read or heard about. Bewegend, Merk & More about Markus Merk

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...

‘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. I was convinced the offence was just inside (the penalty area). By Danny Makkelie, who admits his fault by giving a penalty instead of a free kick just outside the penalty area. “We all like to be as anonymous as possible.” Canadian referee Carol Anne Chenard is happy that she was not in the newspapers because of her performances. “I will be proud and thinking how fantastic it is to be here.” Says Björn Kuipers before the European Supercup between Barcelona and Porto last Friday. “We don’t want to see referees mobbed by players, where players run from long distances to crowd...

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...

Cavani scores a brilliant overhead kick. Only for that darn assistant to rule it out for Offside!

When getting my kit ready for Thursdays game I decided to take some photo's of the ammount of crap we end up carrying around with us. Items not shown include Two sets of flags - Touchline and Refscall buzzer flags Two pairs of boots Wash Bag that also includes Radian B, Deep Heat and some Ice cream I brought years ago but works Plus drinks that I take on the day.

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...

‘Referees in the media’ will be published each Monday (and only this week on Tuesday) on the Dutch Referee Blog and provides remarkable or interesting quotes and links to articles worth reading. “Their demand is too high especially when the league is still transforming itself and referees still stepping up their game.” By publicist of Uganda’s top league who argues that referees in his country demand to much money for a match. The FA now considers flying in referees from Kenia. “Hopefully I don’t get a stadium ban.” By an old fan of FC Oss who hit referee Edwin van de Graaf with his scooter after his team lost 4-3 against Almere City in Dutch second league. See last seconds of video below for the incident.

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...

I promised you the sums of average cards per match in 2010/2011 season. Here they are. These graph below is based on previously posted stats for yellow, second yellow and red cards on Dutch Referee Blog – all shown on a heat map of Europe. Average number of cards per match in European competitions in 2010/2011.

This season is a bit odd for me. Its the first time since I first started that ive not into a season looking for promotion to the next step. It would be quite easy to put my feet up and just coast through the season. However I made a point of saying to myself, colleague and The FA that this wasn't going to be the case, and that I still wanted to count. So inspired by this excellent post by Tris on setting goals. Here are my very simple goals for the season Easy one and one that can be measured - Referee a County Cup Final. Ive not had one since my first year as a Level 4 (Re)Establish myself back in the County as Referee. My last few years have seen me officiate outside of my Parent County due to my supply league. As a result...

All the way through your career as Referee, people will tell you to get your admin right. Let me give you a great example as to why this. So last night I was due to be on a supply league line. I had accepted the game original. However due to a work commitment that would have made it tight for making the game, i emailed the appointment's officer on Friday coming of the game. I recived a response saying no problem. I also emailed the club informing them. Last night at 9PM i got a missed call alert on my mobile. Signal around my home being awful. It was a missed call from the match referee from 7.15 asking me where I was. He was clearly out for the 2nd half at this stage but I called him back and left a voice mail on his phone...