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Today, the second edition of SummerRefs has something special: the referee comes from southern hemispere, so this actually is a WinterRefs. In this section refs from all over the world and all with different experiences will tell about their refereeing career and how they prepare for next season during this summer break. Each Saturday a new profile will be posted online, and the second person who answers the five questions (5W’s) is Mike Cowie from New Zealand. Name: Mike Cowie Age: 20 Hometown: Christchurch, New Zealand Started refereeing: in 2007 Grade: Level 4 (Level 1 being the lowest) Mike Cowie Who do you think you are (as referee)? “I would hate to have to say “I am a referee similar to x,” but there are certainly a few...

Saw this today and thought it was brilliant. It got a few of us testing it in the office! Seen on Lifehacker.com Continue reading...

If you follow me on twitter you will have seen that I have made a decision recently to step back to being a level 5 Referee. This wasn't an easy decision however one I felt that I had to do. With my family changes during last season, I had agreed with The FA and my supply league that I would close Feb & March to allow home life to settle down. My plan then was to return during April to finish the season. One of the factors in this was I didn't know if I would be able to carry on as a level 4 referee this season, however really hoped that I would. I came back for one game but had barely trained during my time off and so was well of the pace fitness wise. Plus being honest family life still hadnt settled down and so I spoke with the...

Accident waiting to happen ... Since tearing my hamstring about 4 years ago as I tried to go through a sprint session keeping up with the lads who made up the County FA's School of Excellence, I've worn undershorts to support both hamstrings. They have been successful to some extent but I have still no confidence in sprinting and therefore never get above 75% of full pace. As I've retired from refereeing my last pair of undershorts, Helly Hansen's, have lasted longer than usual. Tonight however I found they have a hole which whill only get bigger, so it's time to buy some new ones. My other "accident" involves a bad choice of lunch and it did some terrible things to my digestive system. I don't think I'll be having prawn and...

Check the following penalty from the UAE vs Lebanon. What would you do? For me this is similar to checking your run and so a retake is appropriate? Goal or Not Continue reading...

If it looks like handball ... With Neil celebrating his birthday and Paul celebrating his wife's birthday it was another evening of running around the field on my own. I just concentrated on keeping picking up my feet and setting them down and worked pretty hard. Last night's promotion seminar went well with a lot of interaction and discussion on the subject of handball. I used a PowerPoint introduction and summary and in between ran a few clips of handball incidents. It was good that our new RDO sat in on part of the presentation and was able to offer his own input on some of the incidents. In the end the candidates seemed to accept that often it's down to the referee's positioning and his opinion to decide whether an offence has...

From the Pre Season game between San Jose Earthquakes and West Brom Continue reading...

8 weeks ... to my holidays Even though we turned up early to train, the field we use was already jam packed with football teams all in pre-season training. One group was the local Ladies football team who were playing a game of 6 (7?) aside in one quadrant of the football field we warm up and down around. Tonight they provided 2 moments of light relief and neither were intentional... The first came as the coach took the goalkeeper to one side and decided to "coach" her on taking goal kicks. I've never coached footballers but I have coached referees and in my day job I successfully coached sales teams to over achieve against sales targets. When I heard the coach say to the player, "What are you doing wrong?" the poor girl looked...

It's nearly here but not near enough ... I submitted my first set of closed dates for next season and there seemed to be a lot! It's no surprise as we struggle with trying to cover school holidays as well as ensure we have enough time to go on holiday on Rhodes for my daughter's wedding. Add in a family trip to Alton Towers and my in-law's Ruby Wedding anniversary party and there's not a lot of August and September left. So it looks like my assessing season will not get off the ground properly until October unless I take on a lot of midweek games, which will interfere with my training programme, which is going nicely thank you! We started a little earlier tonight and having tried out 2 minutes running, 1 minute walking on Friday, I...

5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Training is rarely fun at the best of times and when you have to train on your own, it's that little bit harder. Tonight, for a variety of reasons all my training partners had to be elsewhere so I trotted down to the field on my own. I had plenty to think of while training (slightly more than ... breathe in, breathe out) as I had managed to cross a few things off the "To Do" list. I'd finally completed my son's passport renewal, sent off his request for leave during term time to his school, booked some additional days in the school holidays, booked a double day ticket to Alton Towers and also an overnight hotel stop in between. I also managed to pick up a session next Thursday delivering some training to a...

A midweek post because it's another busy week and a lot has happened over the last two days. I headed to Hemsworth on Tuesday to watch a recently promoted referee and enjoyed his participation in a tense local derby. I did well to get to the ground as early as 70 minutes before kick off. I punched in the wrong club on the satnav and in the deepening gloom of an early dusk, I realised in the last mile that I was heading to the wrong ground. A few deft turns later and I was back on my way, but this time to the wrong side of the ground! I re-negotiated the side streets and found, to my relief that I was right outside the club house. Wednesday's trip to Sheffield saw me visit the home of the team I watched get battered just a couple of...

So much for taking a rest as things kicked off on the unofficial forum used by players, managers, etc. involved in the local Sunday League. It was just what I needed in the week that saw me take a trip to Birmingham with work (horrible journey back along the M42) and advised that I need to make a trip to Newcastle to chair an "important" meeting. Much of my time now seems to be spent in meetings at work. Out of work I managed to finalise the assessments from Monday's game and the coaching report from Sunday's, just in time to go out and assess a local promotion candidate on Saturday. It was a good old fashioned cup tie and there was plenty for the man in the middle to deal with. It was a similar story on Sunday as the game went to...

Another crazy week in football has passed and I still have a mountain of reports to complete before taking the rest of the week off. Last Monday Jamie, David and I planned out the next Basic Course for New Referees being held at County HQ in October. This one is slightly different in that both of the RDOs and David are not available on the first week, so as Course Leader, I'll have more work to do. Tuesday saw me take a trip to Savile Park in Halifax to watch a new referee in his first open age 11 v 11 game. Michael was on the course in May and this was his first opportunity to put into practice the things he learned. He put in a good stint and writing his coaching feedback report was easy to fill with compliments. On Wednesday I...

Regular readers will note the change of colour scheme. I thought this one was slightly easier on the eyes and less like an advertisement for Carlsberg beer!

As the Sunday League season opened this morning I thought I'd take a trip out to ensure that all the games had taken place. With something like 23-24 games scheduled, I would have thought it unusual if something hadn't gone wrong. Fortunately it was restricted to one team who hadn't checked their fixture list and turned up at their new ground, instead of the ground I assigned to their game. The situation was resolved quickly and the game took place. Meanwhile I made my way to James' game where I ran the line for him for about 10 minutes which was good fun apart from the trip that saw me sprawling along the touchline and getting grass stains on the knees of my jeans. On arriving back home, the first of the online match reports were...

Normal service has been resumed ... After injuring my Achilles on June 26, I decided that a 3 session lay off was enough and I needed to test the injury to see if it would hold up. With a speed endurance session having caused the injury I decided it would be best not to try one of those again so I thought a basic run for 12 minutes, walk for 5 minutes and run for 12 minutes would give it a reasonable test. The field was a little crowded with our usual field occupied by an open age ladies team in one quadrant and an open age men's team in another. On the adjacent rugby field another open age men's team were setting up to train and in the top left hand corner of that field two junior teams were going through their paces. So rather than...

I'm finding there are more and more situations in football and real life where I want to make a comment but considering my current position as Supply League Assessor in a well regarded Supply League and Level 2 Referee Tutor, with ambitions to progress further in both areas, I don't feel able to in case it is misinterpreted or is construed as some sort of semi-official comment. This blog became a little bland after the incident 3 seasons ago where a post was used by a club as part of their defence against charges brought by the County FA. It became even more bland when I retired from refereeing almost a year ago and now that I am busy most nights with football, I have no time to post anymore. So this blog is retiring and I may post...

It's only 6 days since my last post but I've packed a fair amount into them. I had a night off last Thursday from everything and it was needed before a busy weekend. On Friday I travelled with work to our office in Runcorn before heading to Wakefield to carry out my 18th assessment of the season. The game was challenging and the referee was suffering from a lack of match practice having recently come back from his honeymoon. On Saturday a trip to Bradford to watch a female Supply League referee. I found a few pointers to help her develop and she acknowledged them with grace, commenting that she had identified one herself and was working on it. Sunday was full of stress as I led the first day of a course for 23 new referees. There...

It never rains but it pours as just as things begin getting busy in football, work also gets busy too. Last week saw me at the Referee's Association meeting on Monday where we heard that two County referees have been suspended for not sending in their disciplinary reports. I also had to pass on the news about the breaches of Respect Code of Conduct. It wasn't a jolly meeting. Tuesday's meeting of the Sunday League Committee became even more sombre as we dealt with clubs who have fielded ineligible players. They were all fined and some were warned they faced point deductions for their actions. Then it was time to discuss the Respect infringements and the committee seemed happy with the course of action suggested. On Wednesday I had to...

The winter's chill is beginning to set in and this weekend's assessments were both conducted wearing my big padded jacket. It wasn't too bad out at Otley as the sunshine came out at half time but it was a bitter wind blowing around Throstle Nest as I assessed the referee on the FA Women's Premier League game taking place there today. The game was settled by a hat trick from the away team's centre forward who displayed some fantastic speed to outpace the home defence. Although the home team had equalised after her first goal, her second came within a few seconds of the equaliser and it was a long and busy afternoon for both defences. The trainers of both teams were also kept busy particularly after a nasty clash of heads late in the...