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Scott is one of our up and coming young referees and started at University last year. Ealier this year he developed stomach pains and had his appendix removed. Following the operation tests were carried out and Scott was found to have further problems.
His mum takes up the story:-
"In February this year Scott was diagnosed with the rare blood cancer called "Burkitt's Lymphoma." He is receiving intensive chemotherapy which will continue until the beginning of May. Hwill then need several months of convalescence. There is a 70-80% chance he will make a full recovery. Scott would like to thank everyone for al their get well wishes he has received.
We can all realise what Scott's family are going through at this time and following the support and assistance they have received from WARD 117 at the North Staffs University Hospital they wish to buy a piece of equipment which the ward has said theyrequire. With this in mind, Scott's mum and other members of his family and friends are training to run in The Potteries Half Marathon in June. They would like as many sponsors or donations as possible to help them with this.
I am sure everyone connected with the League and football in general , wishes Scott a full and speedy recovery, so that he can return to the game he enjoys so much.
Scott's details are available in the handbook or from the editor.
R. Richardson.
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The North Staffs Referees' Club, will from January 2008, be moving to Port Vale Football Club. The January meeting will be the first meeting at the new venue and the guest speaker will be head of Premier League Referees - Mr Keith Hackett.
The December meeting will take place at the Rectory Road Sports and Social Club and the guest speaker will be Premier League referee Howard Webb. It is hoped that all officials on the League shall be in attendance. Those wishing to join the clubfees are currently £17.00 for those over 18.
The Club will be holding an end of season celebration together with the Chairman's Dinner to reward all referees who are successful in securing promotion. The venue for this will be the Port Vale Football Club on the eve of The Cup Final. Ticket prices will be announced later.
One of our members was recently assaulted on a Sunday morning game and has now decided to leave Sunday football. It is always sad and disappointing to hear of officials being assaulted. To the referees credit he has decided to continue rerefeeing in Saturday football.
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 Not only does he not need glasses but he can read as well........or can he?
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Why become a referee....
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So you think you know offside
Try this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/photo_galleries/4679201.stm
***************************************************************************************************************** More interesting pages for Referees and Assistants:
The role of the officials
want to be a football referee?
Know your referee’s signals?
Know your referees assistants signals?
Pitch dimensions
The aim of football
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Who would be a referee?
I was out running one Wednesday night when in front of me there was a group of about ten men who were blocking my route. As I got closer to them and without saying a word they parted and let me by, I thanked them for this and the usual jokes about “ I have your number” were abundant. On the Thursday, when out with friends, a large group of merry (drunk) men were standing next to me and despite the fact that everyone had had a lot of drink, when they bumped into me and my friends, or we knocked into them, both were always apologetic as misjudgements and mistakes happen. When at work the following day I was given a rather troublesome group,(students with severe learning difficulties), to look after and, despite the fact that they were a handful to take, banter between us, even if I got something wrong in their eyes, meant that the day passed without any problems. On Saturday I went for a run again and there I came across another large group of men but this time I was verbally abused, some continually wanted to question any decisions that I had made and all of this because a did not see something that had happened to them.
Have you have worked it out? The latter were a group playing football.
The moral of this is that you do not abuse me in the street, you do not abuse me in my private life and you do not abuse in my job, so what gives you the right to abuse me on a football pitch. Remember without the referee there is no game of football.
We are human and like all players we make mistakes, only when we make a mistake everyone gets on at us.
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Who Would Be A Referee?
Well! What a 90 minutes my assistants and I have just had!
It had everything: abusive, insulting and foul-mouthed language; agression and potential violence.
I saw the fist coming my way, but so did my assistant, who intervened quickly and diffused the situation (must commend her in my report – she can be part of my team anytime!)
I think I will go and towel the sweat from my brow and partake of the refreshments offered. I think I need a drink and to chill out.
How did this situation develop? What were the antecedants? Could I, or we, have done something to avert the abuse? Did I manage the intervention in the appropriate manner? Should I have taken sanctions earlier?
All these questions and more, we think about and discuss.
Well, that’s my night shift finished! Time to go home and get some sleep.
I have to get up at noon and prepare for my afternoon football match.
Who have I got? (I check my fixtures.) Oh, that team, that manager and bench!
Maybe I could take some tranquillisers and bung them in their pre-match cuppa............Bungs?......Drugs?........What am I saying? It must be because I work on a Challenging Behaviour Unit in a psychiatric hospital.
I know what you’re thinking, but on my salary, I don’t do it for the money! (Where have I heard that before?)
Bungs?.........Drugs?.........Maybe I should take up cricket umpiring. That’s a tranquill pastime. (There’s that word again!)
I’m looking forward to a quiet, sporting game of football this afternoon, before I’m back in charge of the unit tonight, with the same team of care assistants.
Yours in work and sport,
Yeb Astard.
Referee.
P.S. The drink was a pot of tea!
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Referees Profile
Ron Shanahan.
I started my footballing career, as a fifteen year old apprentice professional with Bolton Wanderers, however on my sixteenth birthday I joined the Army and represented the Army at regional and international level wearing my favourite number eight shirt.
On leaving the army a corporal in 1968 I was playing locally for Stallington Hospital in the Longton League and Staffordshire County League North, Longton Landrovers in the PDSL and Station Hotel in the City Traders League.
I started refereeing after passing my referees course delivered by Arthur Elden in the 1971-72 Season thus starting my career as a referee in the County Minor Sunday Youth League, progressing onto the County League North.
On attaining my class one (level 5) I was promoted onto the Cheshire League (NWCL) as an assistant Referee and onto the panel of the Midland Senior League as a Referee.
I have been fortunate, that during my progress of the last 35 years, to have made many friends. Although being known as a hard liner, believing, solely, that our great game is played with feet and not the mouth I have always been a stickler in relation to foul language and dissent, so much so that in years gone bye had the nickname Rainbow Ron bestowed upon my person as to the amount of Red and Yellow cards shown in the early part of my career
I am currently officiating on the Staffordshire County Senior League, Ansells League and the County Minor Sunday Youth League.
In July 2004 as part of my personal future footballing development I became an accredited county football referee instructor and I am looking forward to making our future younger referees our senior referees of the future.
Footnote: There is no truth in the rumour that is currently circulating the grounds at the moment that I was recently found sobbing in the changing room due to the fact that I have gone six games without showing a red or yellow card.
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Discipline from Within
A few years ago I was refereeing a game when the home team’s No9, while under pressure from a defending player, attempted to kick a long cross field pass. He rode the challenge, there was no foul, but, as he attempted to pass the ball, he fell to the ground and the ball rolled to an opposing player who quickly set up a counter attack. The No9, as he fell to the ground and miss hit his pass, thumped his hand into the playing surface and said B****** in what I saw as an act of frustration. He then quickly jumped to his feet, chased after me and while he was doing this I was thinking to myself “here we go again! He’s lost it. This could be another avoidable sending off”. Immediately, there was an offside decision and I stopped the game just as the No9 reached me. Instead of the expected tirade of abuse he shouted “Referee, Referee, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I did not mean to say that”. I must admit that I was taken aback by his apology.
Now let’s look at the facts surrounding this event. The game was being played at the City Ground in Nottingham. It was the Forest No9 who was involved in the incident and he fell to ground close to the half way line in front of the dugouts. The reason for the apology was that his team’s Manager, Mr. Brian Clough, was a witness to his act of frustration and had heard his outburst of ‘bad’ language. The Manager was a keen disciplinarian and the player knew that his loss of control would not be tolerated.
In early October this year I was assessing at Nottingham Forest and sitting next to me was their ex-Secretary, Mr. K. Smales. We struck up a conversation during which we talked about football in general and I told him my story and about the positive effect Mr. Clough, had on the overall behaviour of his team’s players. Mr. Smales agreed that Mr. Clough did not like to see any of his players receiving cautions for acts that were avoidable such as dissent and delaying the restart of play. He also stated that when players were cautioned for these “petty” offences he would ask one of the secretaries, while the game continued, to go to the office and type out a set fine. Mr. Clough then handed the envelope to the player as he walked into the dressing room at the end of the game and this money went into a fund for the players’ trip at the end of season. This Manager understood the difference between a missed timed tackle and cautions that were self inflicted through a lack of self control. His displeasure was directed at the player and the sanctions focussed the player’s attention so there were rarely cautions of this nature issued to that team.
At a time when referees, particularly those involved in junior football, are under constant criticism managers need to impartially recognise fault and attribute blame accordingly. The disciplinary records of our teams could benefit from club Managers/Secretaries, at this level, adopting a ‘Brian Clough’ mentality to the increasing level of mindless indiscipline and, by leading from the front, prevent the further escalation of this type of offence.
Just a Referee.
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07-09-05
“From Little Acorns ………..”
We all know about the clubs who are in the newly formed Staffordshire County Senior League and the possible promotion route that they would need to take if they want to progress up the national football pyramid. It is now possible for any of our teams, including the new teams in Division Two, to go all the way to the Premier League. It might be viewed as “if pigs could fly” but eventually it will happen to a newly formed team from some where in this country.
There is, of course, a way for individual people to progress up the national pyramid and that is by being a match official. Over the last twenty years around twenty officials from our leagues, under their previous names, have gone all the way to the national list. At the present time we are represented on the national lists by seven of our former officials. Phil Dowd and Alan Wiley are ‘Select Group’ referees which means that they are professional and referee Premier League games. Tony Bates is a Football League referee and, when he was an Assistant, he represented his country as a FIFA Assistant Referee. Mark Warren and Chris Sarginson are both Premier League Assistant Referees.
In season 2004 – 05 both Carl Dunn and Amy Rayner became Football League Assistant Referees. Amy, at present, is the only female on the Football League Assistants’ list and, this season, she has been promoted on to the list of FIFA Women Referees. At the end of last season, after lengthy service, Andy Martin reached the compulsory retirement age and came off the Premier League’s Assistant referees’ list.
Two of the present league’s management committee achieved Football League status. Ray Barlow, the Referees’ Appointment Secretary, was an Assistant Referee on the Football League during the mid eighties and the league treasurer, Jim Rushton, was a referee until 1995 when he reached the compulsory retirement age. Some say this did not come quick enough! Paul Reger and John Brandwood were on the National List of referees in the nineties together with John Hilditch who was also a FIFA Assistant Referee. During this time he was recognised as the most experienced Assistant Referee on the national list.
For the period of the early to mid eighties we had Nick Broad, John Wilson, John Caulkin, Geoff Banwell, Malcolm Carter and Jeff Smith who were all on the panel of Football League Assistant Referees. Jeff Smith was very unfortunate as he gained promotion to the Referees’ list but a back injury meant that he had to retire and never had the opportunity to referee a League game. Both Tony Bates and John Hilditch were Assistant Referees on F.A. Cup Finals and Mark Warren achieved the ultimate honour of being an Assistant Referee for the World Cup Final tie.
All those ex-officials from our Leagues expressed their gratitude for the experience that they gained while officiating at our level. The one thing on which they all agreed is that they found the Leagues offered a very competitive standard of football and this assisted them as they progressed up through the higher Leagues.
In the future we hope to see one of our ex-officials refereeing the F.A. Cup Final and possibly the World Cup Final. It might be one of the match officials that you have on your game this weekend. Try and show a little respect towards them and help to nurture the next batch as they start out on their journey through the National Pyramid.
The person to contact for information about referee’s courses is Nick Broad and he can be reached on 01782 512122.
Just a Referee.
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