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[santa sangria]

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.

 

[ChrisBLD]

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.

 

[JamesL]

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.

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.

 

[GraemeS]

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.

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.

 

[NoFoulsAllowed]

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

 

[RefereeX]

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 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.

 

[santa sangria]

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.

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.

 

[ChrisBLD]

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

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?

 

[RustyRef]

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?

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.

 

[bester]

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?

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.

 

[ChrisBLD]

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.

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

 

[santa sangria]

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!!!

 

[SMYeaSM]

Starting out in football for me was at Leeds United academy refereeing and assisting at U12s-U16s, it is a very sheltered environment. Although I met some of the first team coaches at the time, one of the nicest being Gus Poyet who took time out of his schedule to have a chat, also after an U16s game, I got a knock on the door and Kevin Blackwell the then Leeds United Manager wanted to pop by and say I had a good game, which as a 17 year old ref was a pretty good feeling. When I reflect back at that time, and I was there at the same time as the Madley's once doing a match where Bobby was ref, and me and Andy were on each of the lines, with Steve Lodge being our assessor as they were then, the Madley's are a few years older than me but were very dedicated to wanting to get promotion, when I hit 18 when and left the academy and although I was balancing Saturday afternoon open age football (a bit of a culture shock when you were used to talented footballers) I took a career route. Due to that I had to step out of refereeing altogether eventually, especially when my local league folded meaning travelling distances were frequently a 2 hour round trip.

I think the "sheltered" approach isn't the worst of ideas if it is carried through, if you were able to get promotion as an U18 referee to say Level 5 by refereeing academy football and then progressing through U18's and U21s it would be an interesting experiment to see a pool of referees developed through professional club academies vs the current open age pathway. I get you will need to do open age at some point but often the players in the leagues for promotion from 7-5 are limited in talent (in the nicest possible way) and I am not sure retention is helped by refereeing The Crown vs The Duck on a Sunday morning on a bog of a pitch. Some enjoy grassroots football and that for me is where I am happy at, I get the supply league assistant appointments, which are good for the atmosphere and I am currently working through the pathway to 6 aiming for that to be done by December which is very achievable and then move on for Level 5 but I am not sure how many of the open age games within the min of 15 I have to do I will actually enjoy when I have seen the recent local matches that have taken place.