Progressing Through The Ranks
Pete Hazel, 11 October 2011
AN INSIGHT INTO SENIOR REFEREE DEVELOPMENT
Neale Barry – Head of Senior Referee Development at the FA
With Mick “Attila “ Ewen in fine form, (his rant on the poor official who sent him a letter complaining about bench indiscipline but did not report the benches was worth the entrance money alone), Neale Barry was left with the challenge of following the right Hon. Mr Ewen.
Neale met the challenge with full gusto & gave Mick a run for his money, hence Mick’s new middle name as christened by Neale (we would not have dared do it!). It is worrying when they share the same thoughts on Social Media. Guys & gals you tweet and blog at your peril.
So what insight did Neale provide in his presentation?
His goal was very simple “Provide an insight into his role as head of senior referee development and the rationale behind recent changes in referee grades”.
Listening to his rationale, it all made sense, “Level 2’s were on average doing 8 to 10 games a season, yet we were expecting them to perform on the higher football league stage and judging their performance on a handful of games”.
With the new structure in place the top level 2’s will double their quota of games at National Conference level, which should lead to improved standards and make that step up to the football league much easier for the up and coming referees.
Similar rationale will work from level 4 through to level 2.
Given the succinctness that Neale explained the rationale, perhaps the FA missed a trick by not communicating this rationale to all referees. Tip for the future, perhaps a small video clip downloadable via the web.
Changing topics, the “ageing population” has long been a subject for pension funds with people living longer and leading a more active lifestyle. Who would think that it would impact refereeing?
Think about it, I can remember Motty skipping around the Stockwood Park running track well within the required time. It is fact that referees are much fitter today and better prepared than ever before.
The result is that the average age at each level is increasing, with many senior referees going into their fifties, if not sixties whilst still meeting the required standards.
Why is this fact important?
Very simple, in the past the “churn” model was based upon referees reaching a certain age and dropping out, thus enabling the up and coming younger referees to be fed into the system. With this no longer happening, then the opportunities become fewer leading to more referees dropping out in that critical 20 to 30 year old threshold. The “dip” chart, as Neale calls it, clearly illuminated the challenge he faces.
This leads us to one of Neale’s holy grails – no matter your age there must be a set of uniform standards that a referee’s performance can be measured against over a period of time. Of course, we all have that game that we want to forget but that does not make one a bad referee, thus we must have performance measurements that take into account that off game.
Neale quoted his story of the young whippersnapper who hares around the pitch as opposed to his older loping counterpart, but the young whippersnapper is moving so fast that he is not allowing himself thinking time against his more experienced colleague who gives himself these few vital seconds to absorb the big picture. (Remind you of a couple of our refs!). A tip for the youngsters perhaps.
Yes, there will be disappointments as some referees are downgraded but if it is raising standards overall is it a bad thing, if it is measured fairly.
Neale had some interesting stats in that if you want high marks – referee in West Cheshire but Essex is, perhaps, where you do not want to be. Surprisingly the SSMFL had the widest range of matches to assessments which brings us to that tetchy subject of assessments.
If Neale is having sleepless nights over the dip then he may want to think how he is not only going to increase the number of assessors but also encourage the more senior referees to bring their experience to bear in the role of assessor. With the emphasis on performance, the role of Assessor should not be under estimated which leads onto the area of training & development. Prevention is better than cure they say.
This is an area where there has been major investment in past 5 years. There is now a complete training and development structure in place from Level 7 through to FIFA. In the SSMFL, we are seeing the benefit of this investment with the high quality of youngsters coming through the training academies, then moving up the ladder seeing the progress of the Robs, Adrians, Jakes and Chris’s as they rise through the ranks.
Summing up, it was a valuable insight into Neale’s role but more importantly his vision of where he wants to take refereeing, the importance of measuring performance against agreed standards, the need to continually invest in training and development and the challenges he faces. He also demonstrated that he is not always the miserable b*** he is often perceived as (his words not mine) but has a sense of humour with his description of Webby and Paul Durkin conjuring up images of the giant in Jack and the Beanstalk meeting the red dwarf .
Yes another successful SSMFL meeting in convivial surroundings where we were well looked after by Eldo, Debbie and the Tring Athletic boys.
Pete Hazel
Secretary