This month we welcomed James Mainwaring as our 'Guest Speaker.'
James is a Select Group 2 Assistant Referee, regularly officiating in matches in the
Sky Bet Championship. He is also a FA Referee Tutor & Former Referee
Development Officer at Lancashire FA.
James then took to the floor and talked about renewed efforts this season in referees management of
participant behavior. He outlined how the FA, Premier League & Football League have this season been
implementing a crackdown on acts of dissent towards match officials in the game.
James then moved on to present a session on 'Expecting the Unexpected.' This presentation was based round how as Match Officials, we need to be prepared to deal with unusual situations on the field of play and then correctly be
able to manage them. James first initiated discussion about unconventional events that had arisen in the games
of those present, whether that be serious injuries or extraordinary incidents. We then split into groups and
watched a series of video clips were match officials had out of the ordinary situations to deal with in their matches,
within our groups and then as a whole those present discussed things such as:
- What the Match Officials in the clips had done well within that situation.
- Is there anything they could have done differently?
- How would we manage that situation if had arisen in one of our games?
- What was the correct course of action within the Laws of the Game?
James also shared advice and guidance from his experience in officiating on the issues that arose in discussion
of the various clips. Everyone greatly enjoyed his presentation and plenty of debate was provoked on the different incidents. Our Training Officer, Graham Speed then led a vote of thanks to James for a fantastic evening.
A reminder that next month we welcome Ray Oliver as our 'Guest Speaker.' Ray is Head of Professional Referee
Development at the Professional Game Match Officials (PGMOL), responsible for the training and development of
all Select Group, Select Group 2 & National List match officials. Be sure to join us on Thursday 23rd February at
8pm in our usual location of Chris the King Club of Parish King. You can view of full programme of 'Social Evenings' on our 'Programme' page.