MEN IN BLACK

MIB Men in black

What motivates someone to become a referee? We caught up with Aaron Bannister and he explains how he became one of the men in black...

Hi, I’m Aaron Bannister and I’m a Level 3 Referee.

I mainly referee in the Northern Counties East League and the Evo Stik North, South and Premier Divisions.

I am an Assistant Referee on the National League North, as well as, as Forth Official on the National League Premier.

I am a Level 2 Tutor, an Ob(Above and right) Aaron during the NCEL Premier League game against Handsworth Parramore

Aaron watches on as the Railway and Trafford players get to grips with each other. server and I also work for the West Riding County FA as Competitions Coordinator.

I started refereeing at the age of 14, as my football career can only be described as woeful (at best!).

My dad is a referee so I went to watch him regularly.

One Sunday morning in South Kirkby, the club assistant decided he’d had enough, so threw the flag on the floor.

My dad asked me to pick it up and the rest is history.

I loved it, so I booked on the referee’s course, passed 12 weeks later and I made my way up through the refereeing levels.

During this time, I was chosen to be in the West Riding CFA School of Excellence and The FA National Referee Development Group.

As I reached my late teens/ early twenties I came across quite a few challenges in refereeing. Mainly gaining respect from senior players and managers.

They see a young lad refereeing and automatically think ‘He’s never played the game, he doesn’t understand’ or ‘they get younger these referee’s, not as good as the older guys!’ The second statement is probably true!

However, there isn’t much I can do about it! I go out and do my best, week in, week out.

The challenges I faced are the

same every young referee faces.

I know this is the case, because most of my mates were also young referees and all had similar comments directed at them.

After a couple more years refereeing, I reached Level 4, my first taste of Semi-Professional Football.

I quickly realised the importance of both your on-field performance as well as the off-field performance.

As a referee at this level, your conduct has to become so much more professional. If you have a poor attitude, you will not survive.

The pressure is certainly added and decisions are so much more important to both the clubs and the referees in the middle.

I was lucky enough to earn promotion to Level 3, the level I am at now.

I still regularly hear comments from the crowd/managers/players that say “we don’t care”, “are in for it for the money”, “we are cheats”, “useless” as well as much, much more.

The only reply to this is that when we get a decision wrong, it’s not on purpose.

We can’t see everything and we call it as we see it.

We are only human and we make mistakes.

Something else I think people don’t realise is that we often reflect after the game about those ‘big decisions’ and if they happen to be incorrect, it does matter,

we do care and we certainly have no bias towards any team!

I would like people to consider that we are marked every game by each club and are often marked on our technical performance by observers.

Again, this comes with an added pressure to referee the game to the letter of the law, but also with a bit of ‘common sense’.

We can lose valuable marks just by something as simple as different colour sock tape on a player or administrating a technical caution.

Whilst some clubs may mark you down because of a 92nd minute penalty!

You have to find a balance, which at times, can be very difficult.

Looking forward, I hope we can get a closer relationship between the clubs and the referees, as it is desperately needed.

Unfortunately, most players don’t want to learn about the laws of the game and most Referees are not interested in tactics.

I do think we can learn from each other though.

In particular, about each

other’s expectations and really move forward.

We are seeing a massive decrease in cautions for dissent and I would like this to continue.

The ‘Respect Program’ has had a massive impact and continuing to work with captains is a massive success.

The way the Referee’s Course is run now is superb.

I am actively involved as a Tutor to teach new referees and I can clearly see an increase in ability within the new referees, as well as, the opportunities for both young and old referees ever increasing.

I would recommend anyone who is thinking of doing the course to do so.

It’s a great opportunity and you can be involved at a very high standard if you have the commitment.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article and thanks to Mark for the opportunity to put our view across!