Europe becomes self-suffcient in referees!

During the weekend of the 1st to the 3rd April 2011 a Ladies Football Referees course was held in the gourmet capital of France – Lyon!

The course was organised at the request of the European County Board. Lyn Savage from Headquarters in Croke Park was sent over as an experienced Referee’s Tutor to deliver the course.

The course commenced on Friday evening when the participants were introduced to each other and a general discussion took place with regard to the format of the course.

Bright & early on the Saturday morning the trainees arrived at Lyon University to be put through their paces. The course commenced with an introduction to the rules of the game with interpretations. Practical examples & video footage were used to assist the trainees. After a short break for lunch the Trainees returned to the classroom where further tutoring took place in relation to the various types of offences & how these offences should be dealt.

After the classroom activities the trainees were then invited to complete a novel physical test, which consisted of playing a challenge match against the local GAA club in nearly 30 degree heat. Thankfully everyone survived the heat & retired for dinner to Johnny’s Kitchen, a local hostelry. The course closed on Sunday at lunchtime after a quiz was given to test the knowledge of the participants. A debriefing was also undertaken. All of the participants were delighted to hear that they had passed and were now qualified to referee Ladies football matches in the future.

In all, 13 new referees were trained and one experienced ladies referee attended as a refresher. Three of the new referees are female, and four are non-Irish (two Dutch and one each from France and the US).The new referees and their clubs are:-

Tony Bass – Maastricht

Alan Buckley – Lyon
Eoin Cambell – Lyon
Mike Cryan – Paris
Maël Duigou – Vannes
Eileen Jennings – Paris
Darran Lovely – Paris
Shay O’Doherty – Maastricht

Becky Mattes – Brussels
Tom McGrath – The Hague
Mick Moran – Lyon
Matthew Morris – The Hague
Patrick Stassen – Maastricht
Nicole Van Ouwerkerk – Maastricht

We would like to express our sincere thank you to Lyn,  our tutor for the weekend, for her assistance in making this course a success and so enjoyable, to H/Q for theor help and also to Mick Moran & his back up team in Lyon who were responsible for organising the logistics associated with the course.

Tom McGrath

ECB Referees Administrator