As many of you will now know, two of the Premier Division games have recently been the scene for a gathering, the like of which, to my knowledge, has not been witnessed before….let me present then ‘The Assessment of The Assessors’. Under the auspices

of Tony Weight, some 20 odd assessors watched games at Leverstock Green and Harefield United respectively and duly supplied a match report. At the same time, Roger Abraham performed normal duties as the appointed Assessor and provided the ‘Official’ report on the match day Officials, having listened to the pre-match briefing and performed the post match analysis.

Last Monday at Colney Heath, I had great delight in being invited to listen to the opinions of all those involved, in what I would describe as sincere and genuine determination by the assessors to not only be consistent in their appraisals, but also to make sure that the marks they awarded were consistent with the comments they write. Both games produced many incidents that prompted much debate and it was most interesting to note that honest opinions had great variance depending on where the Assessors were viewing the game from.

It became very clear to me that the techniques and care our Assessors bring to their reporting is not only remarkable but praiseworthy as well. Needless to say, that sometimes forthright opinions, a modicum of criticism do not make happy reading, but rest assured, if these standards are the ‘norm’ then I can only congratulate them and Tony Weight on their endeavours.

Of course all off this would not have been possible without the ‘happy’ agreement with Messrs Marshallsay, Walshe, Feenstra, Waters. And yours truly.

Onwards and upwards…the seasons begins.

Mike Taylor