People often say to me that there are no characters left in refereeing. That may be true but perhaps it’s inevitable in today’s football.
When I started refereeing, there were just three classes of referee. When you passed the examination you became a Class 3. For progress to Class 2 and then Class 1, you were watched by assessors. Most of these assessors were ex-referees but not always, sometimes members of the County FA Council could be used to assess referees.
Quite ludicrous, I used to think, that someone who had never blown a whistle in his life could not only comment
on a referee’s performance but could actually influence his future in the game. But some ex-referees were little better. They received no training as assessors and many had their own personal prejudices. Under that system, any referee who was promoted to Class 1 was said to be fit to referee any game. To suggest that someone who achieved Class 1 in local football, could then referee the FA Cup Final was obviously ridiculous.
All that is history. There are now ten levels of referee. Starting at the bottom, we have level 10, non-active referees who have registered,
but for one reason or another are not officiating. Level 9 are trainee referees, those who are on a referees’ training course. Level 8 are referees under 16 years of age, who have passed their initial examinations and can only referee youth matches. Those over 16 passing the exam, will be Level 7. There are two more levels in local football and to progress to Level 6 and then to Level 5, they will be watched by assessors and have to take another examination.
Years ago, this is where the assessors work was
finished; referees progressed after passing into senior football by club markings. Each
club - and it still happens today - has to give marks to the referee; it used to be out of ten but now is out of a hundred. However, starting at the top, assessors have gradually been introduced to all levels of the game.
Most people know that at every Premiership game, the referee will be watched by an assessor. This has spread down the chain but not all games yet have assessors and so club markings still have considerable bearing on how a referee is perceived to perform. This is all changing as the FA seeks to employ more and more assessors.
All assessors today have to be ex-referees and not only that, they must have officiated at the level at which they assess. All assessors from local football to the top will also receive training and be monitored to ensure they conform to the required standard. For many referees this is most welcome; they feel they will be judged more fairly. Imagine giving a penalty, or ruling out what would have been a last minute winning goal and how that might affect the markings that a club manager might give.
One of the given reasons by the FA, for introducing more assessors, is that some referees are ‘club pleasers’. In other words, they referee to please the clubs, not always taking the action they should have done. However, as you might expect, not everyone is happy.
For example, Brent Peters, manager of non-league Bacup Borough has said he wants to ban assessors from their home games. He had congratulated the referee on letting the game flow in their North West Counties League match and for not issuing a single yellow card, only to find that he had been lambasted by the assessor for failing to caution anyone and not controlling the managers in the technical area. What people like Peters fear is that they may get greater consistency amongst referees but will it take away common sense and they will all become
clones? However, today’s refereeing requires conformity not characters.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2007