The Reading Referee for Aug/Sep 2013

The latest edition of the RRA magazine “The Reading Referee” is available here.

Here’s the editorial as a taster:

Communication

It is often said, perhaps even too generously, that fifty per cent of the problems in industry are caused by poor or the lack of communication. There are many who would contest that the same could be said of football and at our first meeting of the season, this was the topic we tackled. The meeting was led by Will Finnie from Luton, a name that you will not be familiar with but that will change if his refereeing is a good as his workshop. There is every indication that this is the case for Will may only be 18 years old but he is already a Level 4 referee after three successive promotions in two seasons.

No communication of changes to the Offside Law

As we left the meeting on communication, a member said to me, ‘What’s all this about a change to the offside law?’ For many years I led a campaign for referees to be informed of any changes to the laws before the season started. The FA finally seemed to see the light when the change to the steps a goalkeeper could take, was a complete fiasco with referees only knowing what they read in the newspapers and interpreting it differently. But now we are back finding out changes by chance. It’s fortunate that the changes are in the wording rather than the substance but it’s no excuse for not informing every referee before the season gets under way.

A dream for young referees

Imagine you are a young referee aspiring to get to greater heights in the refereeing world and you get an invitation to attend a training day led by the top referees in the country, Premier League and FIFA referees. People like Howard Webb, Martin Atkinson, Kevin Friend, and John Moss. Sessions conducted by the PGMO Training and Development Manager Ray Olivier and their Sports Scientist, Simon Brevik. Juliette Forgham and Stephen Saunders did just that and Juliette tells us about her day in our Page Two article this month.