Ealing Referees Promoted and ELRA Successes

The London Society of Referees has promoted two Ealing referees, Tim Harrison and Bandara Wekadapola, to new levels. Tim and Bandara referee adult club matches on a weekly basis, as well as being regulars at Ealing taking charge of our Youth matches on Sundays.

The Society brings referees in at Level 15. It fiercely protects the standards it has set over many years, requiring referees to demonstrate knowledge of the laws, their application on the pitch and the ability to manage the players in order to provide the game the players want to play and the spectators want to watch. Gaining promotion therefore means that the referee has met the high standards required to satisfy the players, who report on the performance of the referee after each game, and a stringent review by the Society assessors. Promotion is hard to achieve.

Tim has been promoted to Level 9, covering games in Herts/Middlesex Div. 1 and Surrey Division 1. Bandara has been promoted to Level 10 covering the higher games in the Middlesex Merit Tables. Both are to be congratulated – well done! We look forward to seeing both of you at Ealing.

I am also able to report that 18 Ealing referee candidates have successfully completed the Entry Level Referees Award (ELRA), offered by the RFU and delivered by our good friend Ed Turnill, our RFU Referee Development Officer. Of those, 6 are adults and 10 are young referees including 2 members of the Jades. Congratulations to each of you and we look forward to seeing you out on the pitch. We are actively seeking games for the new referees to take, and will be providing opportunities for coaching the young referees as they take mini and midi games in the New Year. Five more candidates are currently taking the ELRA course and we hope to be able to pass them before the end of the season.

In the New Year we will be organising the next referee meeting towards the end of January. We aim to run the Continuous Referee Develop Award (CRDA) and will hopefully have a guest referee or two to talk to us.

The club appreciates all that you are doing, so we look forward to seeing you out there in the coming weeks. Remember, this is the premier referee section in the country and is the model promoted by the RFU; you are part of something very important. Thank you!

Happy New Year

Charlie Hodder