York RA September Monthly Meeting- held at York Hospital Social Club on 7^th November 2019

No. of attendees: 26

Apologies received (7) from: Ian Hotchkies, Brian Smith, John Ledgeway, Jake Drummond, Mark Burke, Dave Milburn, Graham Bradbury

• The meeting commenced at 19:34 with Chairman Alan Kaye asking for a minute’s silence for Remembrance Day as this was the closest meeting to the date. Practical advice was also offered for match day.
• Alan proceeded to welcome new member Harry Gibson and his grandad as first time after completing the recent referee’s course at Poppleton.
• Alan spoke about the different leagues in York and concluded by congratulating Matt Cottingham on his new role as York Minster Engineering league referee’s appointment officer.
• Alan spoke about benefits of the RA- not just the obvious things i.e. home appliances
• County FA letter read out requesting clips, photos, or anything to do with officiating in the past 12 months for their Christmas montage.
• Barry Casterton- no aggravated breaches in the past month- good news. Highly likely that from 2021 open age clubs will need to have someone safeguarded at games if they have U18s playing. Barry also talked through the two yellow card situation with a manager and how to report that.
• Also discussed U18s armband and their significance.
• Finally, a group discussion commenced on VAR after Andy Halliday’s presentation last month

Guest Speaker- Garreth Rhodes

• 2a referee (National League Premier Referee) and 4^th official on the football league.
• Gave a bit on his background.
• Gareth talked about his early career, refereeing on the York league- first game at Barmby Moor, local derby with the infamous Jackson brothers. 3 reds, 6 yellows. Welcome to refereeing.
• 129 games in one season! Went from 7-4 that season.
• Achieved promotion to level 3 out of the York League.
• 3 seasons at level 3
• First football league game- Grimsby v Stevenage, 4^th man
• 2 seasons at 2b
• Gareth proceeded to cover identifying careless, reckless and serious foul play challenges as his main topic.
• We looked through a number of clips, from both the professional and amateur game.
• A key focus was to get the correct angle on challenges so that you have a greater chance of getting the decisions correct.
• Secondly, be switched on from the beginning as SFP challenges can happen at any time.
• Overall, the presentation engaged members to create discussion within the group. James Unwin gave the vote of thanks, thanking Gareth for his time, especially at short notice for his presentation and interaction with members during the evening

The meeting concluded at 21:36

York RA October Monthly Meeting

held at York Hospital Social Club on 3rd October 2019

The chairman welcomed all to the meeting then asked members to stand and observe a moments silence for ex member Keith Hatfield who had passed away recently. He welcomed new member James Black

Apols (10 no) were received from Messrs; Ham; Burke; Rhodes; Milburn; G Hartley; Cottingham; Bayley; Sheirs; A Kaye; Greenwood

Dinner;

22 May, Marriott, menu agreed, price to be set, but will probably same as last year.

Reading RA; driving a charity fundraising weekend in memory of a member, who had passed away . We agreed to donate £25.00

Membership stood at 25. Details of insurance and benefits are on website

Weather conditions, with winter approaching, always take heed of weather conditions

Sinbins; B Smith described incidents during an U18 schools match he was involved in. Overall responses are good with managers accepting more than players

Arm Bands

for U18s. RA to get some from CFA to issue to all our members in York area and make uniform, as each CFA have different methods of identifying the junior refs.

Our guest Andy Halliday MBE split his evening into two sessions;

First he gave a resume on his career – “From Nowhere to Somewhere”. He started reffing when realised he was not very good on the playing side. Learned to ref through PT in the Army in 1994, moved to Wales in 1997 (learned Welsh swear words) then Harrogate 1998 ( W Yorks League) back to Scotland 2000, to start at the bottom again. Worked his way back up the latter again. Return to England 2003 then to conference and Prem League (13 seasons) with FA cup final (2015), UEFA appointments and EFL Final (2019).

He then told of some incidents and person he had encountered throughout. He stressed that when you get knocked back try again, harder

He then went on to discuss the VAR system. This was with the aid of clips and actual commentary between VAR HQ and ref insitu. This was very interesting. As stated it is still developing and improving all the time

James Unwin gave a VoT

There being no more business meeting closed at a late 9.55