Young referees take their first steps

'You have to develop a thick skin to be a referee at any level'

Marcus Stead 09/12/2024

4 minutes read

A SCHEME aimed at encouraging young people to become football referees has been heralded as a huge success by the secretary of the Vale of Glamorgan Referees Society.

The Football Association of Wales (FAW) have launched several initiatives that helped boost the recruitment drive, but at the heart of it is the revamped Referee Course, whereby people wishing to reach the required standard no longer have to sit a six-week course followed by a written exam but can now instead do their qualification online as and when time allows.

This season has seen a dramatic uptake of newly qualified junior referees in the Vale with 18 males and four females between the ages of 15 and 18 now officiating most weekends.

The courses have been completed either individually or in conjunction with local schools who have worked with the FAW.

Terry Allday, secretary of the Vale of Glamorgan Referees Society, paid tribute to all the young people who have qualified as referees this season: “This influx has meant a huge—but delighted—headache for the Vale Referees Society!

“Not only do the Vale of Glamorgan AFL Junior leagues benefit but, as a few of the new referees play on Saturday mornings, so does the ever-growing SWFA Women’s & Girls League on Sundays.

“Refereeing is a learning curve, you gain experience along the way, so the Referees Society has set up a mentoring team, the objective being to support the new referees particularly in their early games so we can provide advice and guidance on all aspects of football refereeing – and trust me – refereeing is not always an easy task. The new referees are also supported with whistles, flags and so on as required.

“Martin New heads up the mentoring team and arranges the mentors each weekend. The aim is not to be there every game but to periodically turn up to watch and speak to the referees.

“This is all done in conjunction with the Vale of Glamorgan Football League whose referee appointing team of Derek Evans and Colin Locke select games based on the experience of the referees.

“Going around the grounds over the weekend it is so pleasing to find the junior clubs – players, coaches and supporters – being hugely positive to the junior referees,” he said.

Terry says that preparing young people for some of the harsher realities of refereeing is a very important part of his work: “Refereeing can be a wonderfully rewarding and enjoyable experience, but I’m sorry to say that we do see instances of violence and bad behaviour targeted at officials, and youngsters coming through need to be aware of that and understand the best ways of dealing with unpleasantness that comes their way.

“But I have to give credit to them, they’re picking it up very well. A few weeks ago, we had a 15-year-old girl refereeing an under-14s boys’ game, some of them were pushing on 6ft, and she’s only 5ft. Towards the end of the match, a fight broke out, but she handled it brilliantly and sent two of them off,” he said.

Terry also emphasised the importance of preparing young people for the pressures that come with refereeing at the top level of football in the modern era. He said: “Something to be aware of, if they have ambitions of refereeing at professional level, is that every decision they make will be analysed over and over again by TV pundits, YouTube channels, podcasts and goodness knows what else.

“In the old days, football on TV was filmed by four or five cameras. Nowadays, every Premier League match has at least 20 cameras, which means every decision made by referees is being analysed from multiple angles.

“Yes, we have VAR these days, but referees have to make a split-second decision based on what they’ve seen from where they’re stood, and their job is a very, very difficult one.

“I spend a lot of time in the USA and it’s quite a contrast with the NFL, where the TV pundits take great pride in understanding why a referee has made a decision. There are mid-season training courses that the pundits go on to learn about subtle changes in the rules and what referees are expected to do in different situations.

“It’s a totally different approach to what we get from the media in this country where quite often we have to listen to pundits who don’t know the rules as they actually stand. They want referees to make decisions based on what they think the rules should be, rather than what they really are.

“You have to develop a thick skin to be a referee at any level, but I’m delighted so many young people from the Vale have grasped the opportunity this season and I hope they’ll find it as rewarding as I’ve done over many years.”

The Vale Referees Society meet monthly where all referees have the opportunity to raise any concerns. The next meeting takes place at Cadoxton Conservative Club on 13th January 2025 at 7.30pm, which will include a presentation by former FIFA match official Kim Fisher, who started refereeing at the age of 14.

Anybody interested in becoming a referee or helping in another capacity can email Terry at:

By Marcus Stead – Reporter

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