For the love of the game

Due to changes in my job, I had only recently moved to Bristol in the spring of 2008 and began refereeing in the county. It came as a great surprise to me when I found out by letter that I was considered as a potential representative for the county in an international football tournament to be held in March 2009. Furthermore, the Gloucestershire FA were to make a sizeable financial contribution towards the cost of the tournament which would make it accessible to the right candidate.

I immediately replied and my interview was arranged. One of the people in charge of the interview was Barry Gee, County Training Officer for Gloucestershire. He explained that he would be going to Dallas as part of the coaching team and spoke of what would be expected from the successful candidate. I knew that I had given a good interview, and felt that even if I wasn’t offered it the place, then I had given the best that I had got. Fortunately enough, I was offered the place and the countdown to Dallas Cup 2009 had begun.

Preparations for the tournament started a long time in advance; I immediately started a fitness regime to bring myself up to the level that would be required. Contact between the group of referees attending started up a couple of months before the tournament, and we had a meeting in Manchester to give us a chance to meet some of the other candidates. They were from all over the country, including Manchester, Charlton, Surrey and the Royal Navy. At this meeting, George McCaffery, Academy Coordinator, gave us some information that we would require to be able to partake in the tournament. George is the founder of the Dallas Cup Refereeing Academy and has been going for many years, so he was able to give us a lot of background information on the tournament. His advice was really helpful and instrumental in making sure we were all prepared for what awaited us!

Before I knew it, the day to go to Dallas arrived. At the meeting in Manchester, George had said that we will travel to the USA in a suit and tie so that we looked the part, and we certainly did. Whilst waiting in the airport, we saw a couple of the Premiership referees waiting for their flights to their respective World Cup qualifying matches. Martin Atkinson had been appointed to Turkey v Spain, whilst Rob Styles was on his way to Oslo to officiate in Norway. We were able to talk to Rob as he was in plenty of time for his flight, and he was very impressed when he heard where we were going.

Once in Dallas, the first few days were started with training sessions at 7:30am which would be run by the Football League officials who had been sent out with us. It was certainly an eye opener and gave us a fantastic insight into what officials have to do at the highest levels of the game in order to be prepared for their matches.

On the third day we were given our fixtures for the following week. My games were all in the U14 and U15 age groups and included teams from England, America, Mexico and Barbados. Two of my games were refereeing appointments, and four as assistant referee.

As a preparation, the coaches who were with us, George McCaffery, Barry Gee and Kevin Pike (former FIFA Assistant Referee and current Dorset Referee Development Officer) had also organised discussion groups on various aspects of refereeing. Examples of these included the role of the fourth official, dealing with mass melees and maintaining control of the game. They gave us some fantastic tips on improving our performance from the very outset, and it was certainly beneficial in the tournament itself as many of the scenarios which they described came up in the games in one way or another.

My games went really well, and the assessor from New Zealand who watched my first game said that it was a good start to the tournament. He gave me a couple of things that I may consider taking into my game, such as positioning at certain instances of the game as well as dealing with the adverse weather conditions. During the first couple of days, it was incredibly windy and made any kind of football difficult. I therefore had to alter my game to adapt to the conditions, and the advice offered to me by the assessor was really beneficial.

Working with officials from various countries was certainly an eye opener, and sometimes the language barrier was a difficulty. In my first game, I was appointed an assistant referee who was deaf and dumb, and coupled with the fact that both teams were Mexican and so didn’t speak English meant that it was certainly a baptism of fire. However, good preparation for all four match officials, as well as a fantastic display of teamwork between us meant that the game went without a hitch.

I was fortunate enough to be appointed to both a quarter final and a semi-final which I was absolutely delighted with. My quarter final was a middle between FC Dallas Texans and Lehigh United from California, which the home side won 1-0. My semi was then between FC Dallas Texans again, but this time their opponents were Southampton FC from England. I was an assistant for this game, but was delighted that both my refereeing ability and assistant referee ability had been deemed good enough to warrant places in the final stages.

I thought that that would be the end of my tournament, but after offering to do a friendly on the following day, I found out that this would be between two of the Super Group sides, River Plate of Argentina and Urawa Red Diamonds of Japan. This was certainly a fantastic honour and I knew that I would have to raise my game to make the most of the opportunity. The game was fantastic to be involved in, and apart from one small claim for an offside flag after a goal had been scored, it was a festival of football! It showed the gulf in levels of footballing ability between the age groups, and was without doubt the most stretching game of my career to date.

Two of the academy members were appointed to finals, so we were all looking forward to watching our colleagues on the big stage. What had been a two week academy trip had flown by, but we had all been given an opportunity that we had never thought possible. The chance to meet and work with FIFA officials in an international football tournament seemed like an impossibility at the start of my refereeing career, but thanks to a lot of hard work from various people, this has now been turned into a reality. I am incredibly grateful to the Gloucestershire FA for making this trip possible as well as funding it, and believe that I could never have picked up so much in such a short space of time without their support, both financially and in terms of coaching. Thanks must also go to George, Barry and Kevin for their fantastic support and advice offered to us during the time we were out there - I just hope that this isn’t the end of my international refereeing career!