Guest speaker March 2013: Roger Vaughan – Recognising Fouls

March – Roger Vaughan – Recognising Fouls

Roger has worked for the Football Association for over twelve years, firstly seven years as Regional Referees Manager for the South West and is now the National Referees Manager for Referee Development. He was previously involved in Training and Development with AXA and Nat West as well as being an FA coach, Licensed Referee Tutor and Chairman of Western Super Mare Referees’ Society. He has been referee in for over twenty years. He was a Level 2 Panel League referee for four years and seven as referee as a National List assistant referee and previously he was a referee on the contributory system for eight years. Roger is now an assessor on the National List.

Roger’s topic was Recognising Fouls and he said this was something that was relevant to every level of refereeing. Get them right and everything else will be easy but get them wrong and everything else will be wrong. However, everything is not always as it seems and for better understanding there are a number of points that you have to bear in mind.

• Speed of the players
• Intention of the players
• Aggression of the opponent
• Angle of the challenge
• Opportunity to play the ball
• Atmosphere

Roger then showed a series of video clips showing tackles and members were asked to indicate whether they were legitimate, just a foul or requiring yellow or red cards. As usual these created a great deal of discussion as well as a fair amount of agreement.

Thanks to Roger for an evening, which as he said, was relevant wherever we referee.