Over-run

It's been a busy fortnight with three Supply League assessments, one promotion assessment, a local Sunday League semi final played and another postponed.

The first two SL assessments saw me travel south on the M1 to the Chesterfield area. I had some development points and some of these were common occurrences that I've seen at previous games. It's certainly making the assessments easier to write as they only take around 2 hours in total instead of 3!

My second trip south saw me watching one of the Division's top referees in action. There was a definite authority in the way he controlled his game and I was impressed. In between times I made the short journey across town to watch S. He gave a good performance and controlled things well despite looking a little ill when he spotted that a player had dislocated a few fingers after an innocuous fall. Fortunately a first aider repaired the damage and the player re-joined the game after being patched up.

The other action which took place was the second of the Sunday League's lower division cup semi final. It was a bit of a walkover and completed the line-up for the final which is due to be played on April 15. I am the nominated 4th Official and it marks my bowing out from all active refereeing. It should be an interesting physical contest.

On Tuesday of this week I made the short trip to Pontefract to watch another up and coming referee. He and his team did what was expected in absolutely appalling conditions with heavy rain and strong wind reducing the playing surface to the consistency of porridge. Thursday was a different story as the weather put paid to the last of our Sunday League cup semi finals. Instead I made the short trip across the town to watch the County FAs Women Quarter Final ably referees by PB who is the father of a referee I've worked with a couple of times on my old Supply League. the home team won can look forward to their semi final at County HQ - good news for my friend Zico (yes Zico from training) who will surely be turning out that night.

David has returned from holiday and I was pleased to be able to hand over a full update of last weekend's District FA games. I'm looking after the first of the open age semi finals next Thursday organising car parking, ball retrieval and turnstile operation. Let's hope it's a big turn out.

Now I have to prepare for my short trip to Leeds where I have the pleasure of assessing my friend Chewitt. This will be a challenge :-)