Young Referees Conference

Over the weekend of the 22-23 May, over 170 young referees aged between 18 and 25 descended on Staverton Park for the seventh annual Young Referees Conference. I’m not sure whether it’s me, but referees appear to be getting younger!

The opening session was given by David Elleray, the Chairman of The FA Referees Committee who offered the participants advice on “Raising Awareness” - totally absorbing presentation covering concentration, keeping vigilant and how to pick up clues when it comes to challenges. The afternoon was shared between outside practical activities and watching and analysing match incidents.

After dinner the whole group watched our very own Howard Webb take control of the UEFA Champions League Final. There was a huge cheer when he played a great advantage, allowing play to continue which resulted in the second goal for Inter Milan.

The Sunday programme included this year’s FA Cup Final referee, Chris Foy, who offered a technical presentation on “Free-kick Management” as well as Phil Sharp, one of our top Assistant Referees, offering his advice on “Lining techniques”. Neale Barry, Head of Senior Referee Development at The FA, led an interactive session on “Achieving your Goals”, which centred on looking ahead, promotion and setting targets. I then facilitated a session on the key mental characteristics a referee needs to be a successful referee. The advanced group joined the conference for the day and were treated to a number of workshops on communication, dealing with aggressive players and effective decision making.

The final few words were left to David Elleray. David gave his thoughts on how Howard had controlled the Champions League Final and thereafter offered information on the future of refereeing in this country.

This was a busy, informative and mostly productive conference, one which will no doubt have inspired and motivated our young referees. A big thank you must go to all the volunteers, coaches, referee tutors, PGMOL officials and RDOs who supported The FA throughout the weekend.

The last word must go to a couple of the referees who attended the conference, Sam Littlefair and Chris Rea, two Devon-based referees.

“We decided on our way home last night that we wanted to email, firstly to thank you for the incredible opportunity given to us in being able to attend the Conference.

“We also wanted to thank Ian Blanchard, David Elleray, Ray Olivier, Chris Foy, Phil Sharp, Neale Barry, Roger Vaughan, the RDOs and everyone else who was involved in the weekend for an amazing experience. We both agreed that we'd learnt an incredible amount, as well as thoroughly enjoying the experience to meet so many great people, from Ian and David at the top to fellow young referees from counties we'd never even heard of!

“On our way home we spent the entire journey discussing our weekend and the things we'd learnt, and agreed that it was a shame we had to wait until August to implement them! This being said however, we both felt the experience invaluable and cannot wait until next year's Conference."