Colin Wallis Writes on Days gone Past

 

A friend of mine buys and sells football programmes. Any of local interest he passes to me before selling them, in front of me I recently had a pile including some Bideford ones going back to 1949.

                 The importance attached to the local cup competitions is interesting. The 1936 Westward HO! Cup final had a gate of 4,500, the 1949-50 final at Barnstaple Town brought in a then record gate for them of £350.00. Its also interesting that the final of  1953 was refereed by a Mr Pring of Plymouth, quite a journey  and perhaps that also indicates the importance of the competitions back then. The linesmen were both local; Sid Tatem of Appledore and Freddie Franks of South Molton.

 The Festival of Britain Cup Final of 1956 between Bideford and Barnstaple was refereed by my father, and the linesman were Mr Sharley and Charlie Bond.

Charlie Bond was the appointments secretary when I started; your month’s appointments came to you in the post on a postcard then. He also ran the line at the 1971 F.A. Cup Final, quite a thing for the area.

 

(My thanks go to Colin for passing on this interesting insight into local football in past years. I would be delighted to receive more for this website)

 

 

Applications for upgrading.

 

Any referee interested in being considered for upgrading from either level 7 to 6 or 6 to 5 should write to the County FA stating their interest. You will have to attend a promotional seminar on Sunday 21^st September at the County headquarters in Newton Abbot. At this seminar you will have to take a short examination on the Laws of the Game.

 

Mentor Training

For any referee who might be interested there is a Mentor training course taking place on the evening of Thursday 9^th October.

Newly Qualified Referee Dave Bennett gets Positive!

 

The above was due to referee us on Saturday, but due to the great British weather, he had to call the game off when he arrived. But I was really impressed with his attitude, and especially how he handled the whole situation.

The pitch was inspected in the Morning, which I did at twelve and it was easily playable then. David pulled me to one side and was willing to confirm to the league that the weather had been fine and it was only in the hour before kick off did the rain become bad and it was no ones fault that the game could not go ahead.

If David’s referring is half as good as the attitude he showed on Saturday then he will be a pleasure to have referring games.

 I thought I would drop you this as it is nice to be able to say something positive about football in general let alone Referees, as at the moment I feel the fun is going out of the game and we need to quickly get some positive attitudes in the game to get the fun back.

Derrick Elston (Manager, Bideford AFC                                                       Kingsley League team)

Match fees and travel expenses details

Child Protection/CRB Update

 

             There has been some confusion recently with some referees Child Protection (SC) and/or CRB’s certificates due to expire and how these were to be renewed. This situation has become slightly clearer now as a result of the Guidance Notes that were sent out by the County FA. These were included with the usual Referees Registration forms received at this time of year. From these Guidance notes the following have be taken

 

             Please note it is best practice to keep SC training and CRB checks up to date. However, for the purposes of registration The FA is not requiring either SC training or the FA CRB to be renewed at present.

 

             So, for now, no SC/CRB’s need to be renewed. If, and when, this situation changes then this will be the place to check!

Quite funny what happened to me recently. You remember Martin (Cassidy) saying (at April RA Meeting) about keeping your kit bag away from the door so that the secretary can get in without struggling. Well I was at High Bickington on Saturday and I had to put my bag behind the door to keep it shut from a bitterly cold wind (although I did have to keep it slightly ajar as the light didn't work and I wouldn't have been able to see if it was completely shut). Really enjoyed the game and it was a good reality check to where I've got with my refereeing.

Andy Bennett

Sports Tours Youth event at Braunton

 

Report and photos courtesy of Tony Butler

 

The two photos below were taken at a recent Sports Tours UK two-day Youth event at Lobb Field, Braunton.

Sports Tours UK run similar youth tournaments in the UK at different venues, featuring touring sides from all over the country. There are both mini-soccer and 11-a-side tournaments held at the events, for different age groups.

Last weekend's tournament saw teams mainly from the Manchester, Midlands, Wales, London and local area compete against each other for the North Devon Trophy at U8 and U10 mini-soccer; and at U11, U12 and U13 11-a-side levels.

The games are run on a League basis, with the top two teams playing in a final. Visiting teams all stay at Twitchen Holiday Park and have a Presentation Evening on their last night, featuring a leading football personality who presents the trophies. This time it was former Spurs and England captain Gary Mabbutt. Last year's celebrities included Paul Walsh and Graham Poll.

Local referees are invited to offer their services and are paid £70 per day for their efforts (refs usually receive their cheque from Sports Tours UK within 14 days).
It's a good 'grounding' exercise for newly-qualified refs to get competitive games under their belt alongside some more 'experienced' referees, especially in the 11-a-side matches where assistants are always used.

 

The photo below shows some of the rather more 'seasoned veterans' from these event - sharing something hilariously funny (probably one of Sercombe's decisions!) with members of the Worcester Youth management team.  In the picture are Paul Baldwin, Alan Webster, Richard Bradbury (a London Referees Association Level 5), Tony Butler and Pete Sercombe.

Andy Stapley was also there.

The other officials included some other regular faces on the local Youth football circuit and some newly-qualified local referees. In the picture below (from left to right) we have Jake and Steve Whitten, Alan Webster, Paul Baldwin, Will Thornton, Richard ?, Sam Smith, Tony Butler, Peter Sercombe and Toby Bennett

A Jolly Trip to Newton Abbot!!

 

             It has happened again. Yet another wasted trip to Newton Abbot for a north Devon referee.

             Tony Butler was requested to attend a disciplinary Appeal hearing at the County office on 28^th May. Now Newton Abbot isn’t a great trip from Bideford and Tony left plenty of time for his 8’o’clock hearing, arriving at 7.30pm, only to find the County office all locked up and no-one around.

             He went into the Newton Abbot FC clubhouse and someone in there rang a county member who advised Tony that there were no hearings to be held that evening.

             The next day Tony made some enquires at the County office to find that apparently one person from each side of a total 3 hearings scheduled for that night couldn’t make it so they were all cancelled. They had FORGOT to inform the referee, Tony.

             A lesson for everyone there, if you have to attend a hearing at County office do phone to check that it is still on!!