Hi all,
I am a 21 year old ref based in West London. I qualified just shy of 8 years ago. I spent 4 years after qualifying refereeing youth games on Sunday mornings.
After the end of my fourth season, various factors led me to lay down my whistle and cards (relocation, as well as lack of motivation after a particularly rambunctious season).
Anyway, after being out of the game almost completely for 2 years, barring the odd friendly or summer tournament, I found various opportunities coming up regularly which I couldn’t say no to! One thing led to another and I found myself regularly refereeing, week-in, week-out. Sometimes 2, 3 or even 4 matches a week! Men’s, Women’s and the upper ages of youth football.
So here we are today, two years down the line and I am realising that actually this is something I want to pursue. But there are many barriers (or at least I think there are) in my way:
1. I haven’t registered with my parent county since the 2017-18 season. Am I ‘unlawfully’ refereeing these games that I have been doing for the past 2 years? None of them have been at a high level at all, only real amateur stuff. Should I stop doing the games and requalifiy to keep on the good side of the FA?
2. As I haven’t registered for 3 years, am I still even a ref? I’ve been trying to clean up my profile on The WGS, but I don’t even have the option to register for this season (albeit I imagine I would be late). The WGS recommends I contact my parent county to register for this season. See below about my struggles with this...
3. Realistically, would I be at all likely to join a promotion scheme this season? Although I am a level 7, and despite my earlier comments regarding the tiers I have been reffing in the past 2 years, I spent much of this pre-season getting my hands dirty in friendlies in some senior counties leagues (usually level 5 territory). Would this, as well as the some ~200 games I’ve done in the last 2 years be taken in to account? Or would it just be a clean slate as I’ve been ‘off the radar’ for the past 4 years as far as my parent county are concerned?. Is Level 5 a very distant dream?
Just to add some further information, I appreciate this is all fairly standard stuff I should know, but my years out of the game led me to forget this kind of information. I’ve looked across all the incarnations of FA’s websites, and have even contacted my parent county (at least, tried to without response) to point in the right direction, but I can’t seem to find anything that can help me. Maybe someone on here can!
TIA and Warm Regards,
Sam
I am a 21 year old ref based in West London. I qualified just shy of 8 years ago. I spent 4 years after qualifying refereeing youth games on Sunday mornings.
After the end of my fourth season, various factors led me to lay down my whistle and cards (relocation, as well as lack of motivation after a particularly rambunctious season).
Anyway, after being out of the game almost completely for 2 years, barring the odd friendly or summer tournament, I found various opportunities coming up regularly which I couldn’t say no to! One thing led to another and I found myself regularly refereeing, week-in, week-out. Sometimes 2, 3 or even 4 matches a week! Men’s, Women’s and the upper ages of youth football.
So here we are today, two years down the line and I am realising that actually this is something I want to pursue. But there are many barriers (or at least I think there are) in my way:
1. I haven’t registered with my parent county since the 2017-18 season. Am I ‘unlawfully’ refereeing these games that I have been doing for the past 2 years? None of them have been at a high level at all, only real amateur stuff. Should I stop doing the games and requalifiy to keep on the good side of the FA?
2. As I haven’t registered for 3 years, am I still even a ref? I’ve been trying to clean up my profile on The WGS, but I don’t even have the option to register for this season (albeit I imagine I would be late). The WGS recommends I contact my parent county to register for this season. See below about my struggles with this...
3. Realistically, would I be at all likely to join a promotion scheme this season? Although I am a level 7, and despite my earlier comments regarding the tiers I have been reffing in the past 2 years, I spent much of this pre-season getting my hands dirty in friendlies in some senior counties leagues (usually level 5 territory). Would this, as well as the some ~200 games I’ve done in the last 2 years be taken in to account? Or would it just be a clean slate as I’ve been ‘off the radar’ for the past 4 years as far as my parent county are concerned?. Is Level 5 a very distant dream?
Just to add some further information, I appreciate this is all fairly standard stuff I should know, but my years out of the game led me to forget this kind of information. I’ve looked across all the incarnations of FA’s websites, and have even contacted my parent county (at least, tried to without response) to point in the right direction, but I can’t seem to find anything that can help me. Maybe someone on here can!
TIA and Warm Regards,
Sam