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WAFCryan2014
Guest
Hi, can someone please explain to me if \ how the refereeing levels and promotion criteria are changing for next season? (2017 18 season) Thanks
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WAFCryan2014
Guest
Thanks for clarifying. Are Levels 7,6 & 5 definitely staying the same?
Yeah. Only thing I've heard that's being changed is mid-season promotions.
Paul March
Well-Known Member
To go double 6-4 in one marking season you would almost certainly need to be an exceptional 6 and very good 5 by Nov/Dec, giving observers and FAs a chance to get 5 reports done for Dec/Jan & Feb. Some leagues will only take 5's if they are going for a 4, meaning that you will also have to deal with a mid season step up in standard too as well as different styles of observations.
Not impossible but a huge ask. The differences between park, county, contrib and supply make it tough enough.
Good luck if that's your chosen route.
I did 6-4 a couple of years ago and I got level 5 when the county board met in March, and then level 4 confirmed in late April.
I've seen some pretty naff level 6s go 6-4!
I've seen some pretty naff level 6s go 6-4!
DanCohen17
Simply The Best
I've seen some pretty naff level 5s get their 4! Nothing surprises me. I remember talking to a few L3's a couple years ago and their apprehension about the expected standard of the rising 4s was hilarious...turned out to be incredibly justified!
Indeed, when I was a level 3 I use to dread getting new level 4s as I never knew what was going to happen. Having to effectively stop a contrib game to tell the assistant when to flag for offside and when not (i.e. flag when the player gets the ball not as soon as it is hoofed forward) did not do my blood pressure any good at all ...!
DanCohen17
Simply The Best
Haha! Problem a couple years ago was that the rising 4's lack of quality was well known across Beds, Bucks, Berks, Herts & London, so it led to some "interesting" games with officials!!
Oh yes, it was very much quantity over quality at that time. I had to deal with, amongst other things ...
- assistants not knowing offside laws
- Flagging for free kicks when I'm 5 yards away and they are 40 yards away
- Even worse flagging for penalties in the middle of the penalty area
- Stupidly late arrivals and even more stupid match day attire
- Inappropriate behaviour in the board room, the worst of which was telling the home club chairman that I'd got a penalty wrong ..!
- And best (or worst) of all, spending the entire team sheet exchange on his mobile phone, despite me telling him before, during and after to hang up.
I honestly expected when I got my 4, that it'd take me a while to get up to "contrib line standard". So imagine my surprise when the first weekend of August rolls around, first contrib line, other assistant turns up 35 minutes late and drops the ref in it with a suicide flag.
It's no better oop North, espec at Supply (assts). Fortunately the selection process before nomination to L4 is fairly stringent up here.
I've found supply league assistant quality to be a complete lottery. I've had two middles recently, one with two young lads similar age to me, one a L5 and t'other a L6, both on the county development group. They were both absolutely superb, you'd have struggled to fault them. Then the following Saturday, two at the other end of the spectrum; one a level 5 who's been around the block a few hundred times and looked a few hundred yards behind play, and another a career level 7 (nothing wrong with that before people get offended) but looked as though he'd never seen a flag before.
Pot luck!
I think that is the case at supply league all over the country. There are no level requirements for assistants, and in most cases no fitness requirements.
Contrib should be different, as assistants are level 4, have had to pass fitness tests and LoTG exams, but I can say from experience that this doesn't necessarily mean they know what they are doing ..! Of course the vast majority re very good, but sometimes the new level 4s are so out of their depth it is unreal. Probably because they get promoted purely on the basis of the refereeing, there is no quality control or assessment whatsoever of their lining before they are promoted. Yes, they have to assist on 10 games to be nominated, but that doesn't mean they have to assess on them well ..!
Paul March
Well-Known Member
Just waiting for my L4 confirmation having passed all the various competency and fitness tests.
Surely the problem with 'unfit' or 'unready' L4's lay at the feet of assessors and counties, I would rather miss out on a promotion than be promoted off the back of a friendly scoring system just to make up numbers and then find i was unable to cope.
Surely the problem with 'unfit' or 'unready' L4's lay at the feet of assessors and counties, I would rather miss out on a promotion than be promoted off the back of a friendly scoring system just to make up numbers and then find i was unable to cope.