REFEREES

On the evening of Monday 20th October 2003 twenty potential referees underwent their examination evening to ensure they have an understanding of the Laws of Football. Everyone of the participants passed the examination with a high percentage and will move onto the remaining six weeks of their course, learning in depth both in a classroom environment and with practical experience.

John Morris  is the Recruitment and Retention Officer for the Coventry Referees Association and it is his job to ensure that we all have referees for the future of the game, below he explains the Mentor scheme and how it will affect some us.

Referee Mentoring.

Four years ago I introduced mentoring to the Coventry Referee’s Association, but what is mentoring and why have we taken it on?

You are no doubt, all aware that we have a shortage of referees in Coventry . We had been looking at the reasons for this and found that we tend to lose the younger age groups, that is, those from 14 to 22 years of age.

While we were looking for these reasons, a new method of running the referees course was tried by the FA this has proved successful, we are still using this format today and now incorporate the mentor scheme.

The course now lasts for ten weeks; the first four weeks are used to teach the laws in brief, the remaining six weeks look at the laws in more depth. The candidates also have to referee at least three games during these six weeks and are mentored during each game. If the candidates are successful in passing the final exam, they then become a fully qualified referee.  

Each candidate has an experienced referee personally assigned to mentor him/her. The mentor will go with the candidate to all of their games, building a one to one relationship to support the candidate, providing guidance and encouragement to develop skills and confidence so they can improve in all aspects of the game and be able to deal, in a professional manner, with all situations and those people with whom they come into contact,

After each game the mentor will expand on some points from the game and point out where things can be improved. The mentor will also provide a written report on the game and we will discuss the candidate’s progress, each week, during the RA course.

The mentoring do es not stop there; we continue to monitor all the referees after they have passed the exam and as they go through their promotion.  During the past four years we managed to get 120 through the Coventry Referees course. Although most have stayed with us we have lost some, and we want to reduce this loss to nil if possible.

Using the mentor’s role, we are coming alongside these young people to support, encourage and help them to understand they are not on their own. These are the referees of the future and if we fail to support them well enough the game of football will struggle to carry on at its present standard at grass roots football.

The role of mentor is an important one and we would appreciate your assistance, especially in the Coventry Minor League, with the initial games that the candidates on the RA course have to complete.

John Morris,

Coventry R.A. Recruitment & Retention Officer.