The morning sessions was delivered by Mark Winfield of “MAX Conflict Management.” The aim in having this type of company in to deliver a high impact session to our referees was chosen because of the work that they have done recently working with Her Majesties Prison Service in conjunction with Sky in a programme called “Football Behind Bars” which was fronted by Arsenal and England Legend Ian Wright. This was then aimed at helping all referees whatever experience or level they have attained deal with and manages Conflict on or off the field of play and when it arises as a Match Official. Due to the inclement weather on the day the outdoor group sessions was shelved and Mark gave a presentation on various topics such as Red Mist Indicators, Body Language, Trigger points and demonstrated various techniques to use in differing scenarios using the audience. A presentation was given to Mark, Amy and Martin after the session. The session was evaluated and here is some of the feedback offered by the audience, “Excellent presentation by Mark and his team,” “Very well organised and fun to watch and participate in” and “It was very useful and could relate to and use a lot of the information on display.”
The afternoon session (Quiz) was delivered by Graham Belcher (Level 2 Referee Tutor) offering the groups in the audience to choose a box from the screen and a question on Law popped up out of it or a scenario clip, the audience was split into four groups each with a chairperson and a scribe to control the groups and ascertain the answers. The groups were then asked to feedback to the other groups their answers and various debates arose from it. If the groups were correct then they were asked to send up a person to have a lucky dip in a sweet jar. The deciding answer was of course Graham Belchers, who had spent several hours looking through the Law Books and deciding what actions should happen in these scenarios.
The second session of the afternoon was delivered by Tim Walker (Level 4 Referee) who had represented Derbyshire County FA at the recent Dallas Cup Tournament in America along with James Adcock who has just recently been promoted to Level 1 Referee on The Football League. He gave a great insight as to how he had been selected (via the NRDP), his travel, lodgings, training and games. This session was put in place to aid Tim’s ambitions to develop as a referee and as a future Referee tutor. One referee wrote on his evaluation form “Very good presentation by Tim Walker on the Dallas Cup, I found this excellently delivered and extremely informative.”
The final session of the day was delivered by Nigel Smith (Level 2 Tutor) designed to bolster the morning session around Body Language. Again the audience was placed in to Groups and they then watched a match day scenario, asked key questions on how the referee handled the situation and then offered an answer after they had offered their answers to the room in an endeavour to benefit referees in their handling of certain characters in their games in the future.
David Heron kindly closed the day’s event by thanking everyone for attending and making the day a huge success.
Nigel Smith writes, “Without having a volunteer workforce like we have in this County there would be no event(s) for our referees to attend, it pleases me greatly no matter what we try to do, our volunteer workforce are always on hand to offer their time and effort, so it is with great pleasure that I wish to thank them for making events like this a huge success! Having seventy two people plus tutors attend on a wet, cold and dismal day In July when they could be at home with their families” was really pleasing and shows just how these events are thought of in the County.
Thanks everyone for making the day a Massive Success and good luck with your future games!
If you would like to get involved in refereeing or have any questions regarding refereeing then please contact;
Nick Hopton
Referee Development Officer
01332 361422 or 07538 936124
nick.hopton@derbyshirefa.com