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Futsal but I’ll tell anyway…

I’ve had a load of assessments in the last couple of months as I’m in an academy group. As well as getting video reviews, I attended more, plus extra online classroom sessions with lots more clips and analysis. It’s been great, learnt loads, great group and it’s helped me get over my panic-my-chiefs-are-watching that’s caught me out before. I’ve been watched by our head futsal ref, head assessor, several others and had loads of training. Given a platform. Armed. Failure now is my own doing!

SE01 - spicey match, made some good decisions, racism accusation not heard, assessor gave me a major mistake for not calling what he felt was a provocative celebration that would have been a second yellow. IMHO the last thing football expected and not enough IMHO but point taken. In a combustible environment watch everything.

SE02 - colleague gave a bad advantage, normal for me. Sniffed a great off the ball card. I could have helped my colleague better at times and been more consistent managing restarts (distance)

SE03 - almost perfect, missed an illegal block

SE04 - far too easy match, I over-managed a bit in the absence of action, no cards tells a story

In the meantime I’ve now had 5 matches at the level I’m trying to get promoted to (3rd tier). Next weekend another on Sat top 2 cracker, then the big one Sun, another at the level above, on video with the whole gang, with probably our top female futsal ref the other side.

Message is - apply for your academies. Do it. Enjoy it. Really brilliant experience.

Scores so far, old money: 7.9, 8.4, 8.4… last week’s incoming probably 8.3 as so easy. Fingers crossed for the final weekend. And I am 50, so if I get promoted it will be front page news… well, I’ll tell you here anyway.

I asked a specialist assistant I met at my county FA about an academy appointment he'd mentioned, and I was told that these appointments are done by the FA and were for level 3s to referee and level 4s to line.

Is there something I'm missing? I'd love to officiate academy football but don't really know how to get involved.

ChrisBLD said:

I asked a specialist assistant I met at my county FA about an academy appointment he'd mentioned, and I was told that these appointments are done by the FA and were for level 3s to referee and level 4s to line.

Is there something I'm missing? I'd love to officiate academy football but don't really know how to get involved.

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Depends on age group.
As a L4 I was doing some u18 stuff in the middle and lining (I did Liverpool V Man City u18s live on LFCTV.)
But I also went to crew academy as a fresh level 7 to supervise their u12 matches.

ChrisBLD said:

I asked a specialist assistant I met at my county FA about an academy appointment he'd mentioned, and I was told that these appointments are done by the FA and were for level 3s to referee and level 4s to line.

Is there something I'm missing? I'd love to officiate academy football but don't really know how to get involved.

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As James said, it sounds like you may have asked about slightly too high an age group. For PL academies, remember that their most exciting young players are often either playing for their U21/U18 team, or are sent out on loan to the lower levels of the football league - top prospects might be in the Championship, others will go down to League 2. That's the standard of football top academies consider themselves roughly equivalent to, so they will want refs of that standard as well.

But definitely lower age-group appointments should be available. One of my first experiences was on the line for (I think) U14s at an academy, and I also did a middle with neutral assistants at U16s a few years later once I was on the L6-L5 promotion scheme, and a couple of U18 lines at L5. But those were all at Colchester who have an excellent academy, but are still only a League 2 team, so again that may nudge the levels a bit.

I do my two local academies. I regularly get U18 English prem teams in friendlies where I'm in the middle and I regularly get to do the line on U18 English prem teams competitively.

Amazing standard. But the issue is you don't get a lot of feedback from the players or the coaches in the friendlies. The coaches are nice (often too nice) and the players are too focused on the football to bother the referee.

So you start to think you are an amazing referee, but when I stepped into a more senior open age league and got a pretty meaty coaching report, I realised I am nowhere near as good as I think I am hahaa

GraemeS said:

As James said, it sounds like you may have asked about slightly too high an age group. For PL academies, remember that their most exciting young players are often either playing for their U21/U18 team, or are sent out on loan to the lower levels of the football league - top prospects might be in the Championship, others will go down to League 2. That's the standard of football top academies consider themselves roughly equivalent to, so they will want refs of that standard as well.

But definitely lower age-group appointments should be available. One of my first experiences was on the line for (I think) U14s at an academy, and I also did a middle with neutral assistants at U16s a few years later once I was on the L6-L5 promotion scheme, and a couple of U18 lines at L5. But those were all at Colchester who have an excellent academy, but are still only a League 2 team, so again that may nudge the levels a bit.

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I ran the line as a 4 in the FA youth cup for Colchester away at a local teams u18s who had been annihilating everyone in their path in their league system and beat Peterborough u18s in a county cup. I was telling everyone how I thought they would give them a good run for their money. They lost about 8-0 I didn't realise quite how good Colchester would be.

ChrisBLD said:

I asked a specialist assistant I met at my county FA about an academy appointment he'd mentioned, and I was told that these appointments are done by the FA and were for level 3s to referee and level 4s to line.

Is there something I'm missing? I'd love to officiate academy football but don't really know how to get involved.

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I am not talking about UK academy football.

I am talking about referee training academies, like CORE in the UK and similar around the world.

GraemeS said:

As James said, it sounds like you may have asked about slightly too high an age group.

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It was in relation to an anecdote he provided, which was an U18 fixture, so that makes sense.

How did you get involved in academy football at lower age groups? Was that through your county FA or reaching out to them directly?

ChrisBLD said:

It was in relation to an anecdote he provided, which was an U18 fixture, so that makes sense.

How did you get involved in academy football at lower age groups? Was that through your county FA or reaching out to them directly?

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It varies on academy and county. Some counties oversee the appointments to professional academy games, in other places the clubs arrange the appointments. Check with your RDO.

ChrisBLD said:

It was in relation to an anecdote he provided, which was an U18 fixture, so that makes sense.

How did you get involved in academy football at lower age groups? Was that through your county FA or reaching out to them directly?

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Worcestershire doesn't have any professional clubs.

Birmingham City training ground in Wast Hills host academy games is either in or very close to Worcestershire.

Try Laura.Harvey@bcfc.com and let her know you're available.
The Under 16s play on Saturday mornings with the younger age groups on Sundays.

bester said:

Worcestershire doesn't have any professional clubs.

Birmingham City training ground in Wast Hills host academy games is either in or very close to Worcestershire.

Try Laura.Harvey@bcfc.com and let her know you're available.
The Under 16s play on Saturday mornings with the younger age groups on Sundays.

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Much appreciated! It's a great place to live for getting to everywhere else, without anything local.

So, this thread was not meant to be about Academy football… it was about getting referee training and joining your local schemes if you can…

So, today had the big final game. Was actually really challenging. Couple of movement things - I’ve been watching too many slo-mo prem referees who have been told to slowly approach incidents - but my chiefs want us sprinting in. And then I dropped a clanger. Game was well over and there was GK penalty encroachment, penalty saved. I knew I should have called it and talked myself out of interfering - an incredibly stupid thing to do when you watch it back with peers and assessors later!!!