West Riding County FA chief executive Hannah Simpson
By James Grayson (Twitter: @jamesAgrayson, @NonLeagueNorth)
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The percentage of matches refereed by a qualified official is at an all-time high, but for the West Riding County FA, the challenge has turned to continuing their work improving the skills of referees.
That’s the view of County Chief Executive Officer Hannah Simpson, made during an exclusive interview with Non League Yorkshire earlier today.
It has been an excellent year for the County in terms of refereeing with Jason Knowles and Aaron Bannister among those promoted to Level 3.
Miss Simpson claims the standard overall is high and admits the County throw a lot of resources into developing referees – the County’s referees centre of excellence being a prime example.
She is also a big advocate of Referee Associations as places where officials can pick up tips and learn off others – citing the Barkston Ash RA as a “leading” Society.
“When people read this (and see the amount of games covered games with qualified officials) they will still say ‘West Riding, the referees are still rubbish’,” said Miss Simpson, who has been County FA CEO since January 2012.
“They might have an official, but they still say it. It is two different issues. The number of officials is one issue which we’re trying to tackle, while the second is how do we make sure that the stock of referees we have got is decent?
“I think we could all agree on a level of consistency of what we would expect from a qualified official.
“That’s the next challenge and that is why we have the centre of excellence which is good, along with the link with the academies at Leeds United and Bradford City.
“That’s great, but you will get a different experience at Leeds and Bradford academies than you would do on a Saturday afternoon in the West Yorkshire League or Northern Counties East League.
“This is a personal opinion and not of the County FA, I think the main complaint against referees is a man-management issue.
“We have some very good referees who manage games and the players, but we have some that just go in and apply the laws of the game.
“Those who just apply the laws of the game struggle. By managing players you can prevent situations from happening and I think some of them don’t.
“Some of them go in as a lone ranger and if they see it they give it – which is right – but within any football match, you manage your spectators, the managers, your assistants and you have to talk to the captains.
“There are some referees who don’t have the confidence to do that. There is a lot to be said about having a rapport with players and managers.”
Hannah Simpson was present when Barkston Ash RA chairman Tony Johnson received the Quest Silver award from former Premier League referee Neale Barry (right)
Since 2012, the County have been committed to ensuring that almost every affiliated game is manned by an official with the Huddersfield and District League being an example where the County have enjoyed success.
Miss Simpson added: “Referees sit in the Football Development area of what we do in line with the National Game Stategy
“That was previously the number of male, female, black and ethnic referees that we get through the system. Now it doesn’t take a genius to know that if you set me a target of 50 new referees a year, that it doesn’t mean I’ll get 50 new active referees.
“It just means I’ll get 50 people through a basic course. I could get people off the street and through the course and then sign it off.
“There was a real shift in what was expected from referees.
“It’s not about the number of referees on the books that are qualified, it is about the number of games that are officiated in junior and adult football.
“The challenge we have got is that adult football is fairly easy to get a baseline value from, in that most games have a referee appointed.
“The Huddersfield League started off with 70% (games covered). That was a real target area for us because we want to be looking 90-95%.
“What we did was we went in and offered courses for ex-players, the general public and we appointed them to that league and that league has gone up to 94%.
“For adult football in terms of games covered we are very strong compared with the rest of the country.”