Following on from a very successful December meeting at Nottingham Trent University and
after shaking off a few Christmas cob webs, January was again a very successful
development group meeting being held at Nottinghamshire County FA headquarters.
Unfortunately Premier League Referee Kevin Friend was unable to attend, so instead it was
the turn of some of the group members to find the spotlight on themselves and the unseen
footage of the camera that follows some of the members around was revealed.
However, the group were lucky enough to be joined by two Level 4 assessors, David
Goldbourne and Philip Clough. Also joining them was a couple of selected level fours from
the county.
At the beginning of the evening Dave Plowright split the group into four teams, all of which
containing a mixture of level 4s, 5s, 6s and 7s, and where possible an Assessor, therefore
differing the experience and refereeing ability in each of the groups. We were then shown a
series of sixteen clips from three different matches. The aim of the night was to highlight
Developments and Strengths from each of the clips.
Firstly the group were shown some clips from a very hard fought game between Newark
Town and AFC Mansfield officiated by Chris Hunter. After watching a series of clips from this
game, discussions then broke out in the groups on what actions Chris Hunter should or
could have taken. One of the first clips shows a Newark Town player receiving a red card
and being walked off the pitch by Chris.
On first view of the incident not a single member or very few noticed the incident that
occurred to the left of the screen, off the ball. Once shown the clip the group were given a
couple of minutes to discuss the incident that had just occurred. After a couple of minutes of
discussion of what was seen, very few had clearly noticed the punch. After further viewing it
came apparent that a punch had been thrown and Chris had dealt with the situation very
well.
Following on from this clip the group were shown another incident in the game where two
players had gone for the ball and the AFC Mansfield player had actually ended up being
knocked out from the collision with the opposing player. Again, they discussed the incident in
the groups and after some discussions between the whole room a conclusion was reached
that the player had won the ball fairly and Chris was right to award only a throw-in and get
treatment for the player immediately.
Later into the presentation, attention moved onto Andrew Dallison and the game he
officiated at Dunkirk v Lincoln City u19s. During some of the clips shown a few discussions
took place over positioning at corner kicks and Free Kicks, most of the group put their
opinion across and the outcome was one of two places where the referee could use as his
starting position.
Of course there were one or two more comical pictures in the selection, one of which comes
to mind is a picture taken of Jordan Bancroft running the line with a very bent arm, all that
gym work doesn’t seem to be paying off it seems, maybe a few tips from Alastair might be
required.
Overall the night went very well and the group enjoyed some good discussions and some
good peer reviews took place.
Well done to Chris and Andrew for taking a bit of stick from the lads and discussing possibly
what they could have done differently in the game. An excellent session which was
presented by Dave Plowright and covered all topics of Refereeing including Match Control,
Positioning during set and Open play, Recognition of challenges, Team Work, Tempo
Management, Advantage, Management of players and Fitness
Finally, they were all reminded that with only 7 weeks remaining of the marking season it’s
vital to be on the ball in your games as every mark counts from clubs and Assessors.
Report by Jon Dolbear (Level 5)