Welcome “Refs’ Man in the stand” Dave Addison!

Please join us a our next meet on Thursday (21st) March 2024 at the usual time and place (19:30 Rochdale Sports Club), where we are delighted to be able to welcome David Addison as our guest speaker.

Dave’s involvement in and long service to the game are longer than many of us are able to recall, and he has helped more match officials on their way to greater things than perhaps he can.  Dave is someone you either will have encountered and/or will in future in his professional capacity as an observer and is highly respected as such.  Dave is renowned for his friendly demeanour, straight-talking delivery, valuable insight and supportive approach to match officials, as well as for his self-developed “high tech” observer evidence recording system. 

We’re sure that you will join us in giving Dave a warm Rochdale RA welcome and look forward to hearing his words of wisdom for match officiating success.

Christmas Meeting 2023 (Thu 14th Dec 7:30pm)

This year’s event will be even more packed than in previous as, in keeping with our promise to deliver development content we will open with an interactive video clip session where we’ll look at and discuss some incidents from recent matches (and no not the VAR ones) so come prepared to give a view!

We’ll then move on to Martyn Collinge’s now iconic general knowledge quiz that will be played in teams (as few can rival the breadth and depth of Martyns miscellany), all fuelled by a finger buffet (hot and cold drinks are available for purchase at the bar downstairs).

As this event is a hybrid of social and development, it’s a great opportunity to come along, meet us and learn a bit more about what we have to offer you as an existing or prospective match official. All we ask is that, if you aren’t already a member, you let us know that you are coming along so that we can cater for your needs and give you a warm welcome (there’s a very short form here to do so, or get in touch via email etc on our contacts page) .

If we don’t see you before have a great Christmas and New Year, keep safe and well and we hope to see you soon!

Hands up who’s ready for season 2023-24…?

Yes we are too and we’ve a few items of news ahead of our first meet of the season this month…

• First of all membership is FREE (yes really) to all so there is no reason not to join us
• We will be announcing the details of and inviting sign-up for our “new and improved” Match Official Mentoring Scheme at the meeting, so come along to learn and be amongst the first to sign up: we aim to make this opportunity available to match officials at all stages of their refereeing journeys whenever they want it
• In response to feedback we have re-organised the format of our meetings, removing all of the “boring” business stuff in order to focus on and pack in more development activities with a focus on active participation, so prepare to be engaged
• We will also be holding additional “extra-curricular” events during the year and will be providing further details at the meeting
• We will also be announcing a very special guest speaker for our October meeting so attendees with be the first to know who this is

August’s meeting will be on Thursday 17th August 2023 at Rochdale Sports Club (also known as Rochdale Cricket, Squash and Lacrosse Club) 7:30pm.

If you can’t wait that long and want to join today you can do so here

Looking forward to seeing you all there!

Upcoming AGM

Rochdale Referees Association will hold its Annual General Meeting on Thursday 18th May 2023 at Rochdale Sports Centre, starting 7.30pm.

All members are asked to attend to discuss the future of the association.

We will also announce our Referee of the Year at the meeting.

Rochdale RA Away Day

Members of Rochdale RA took the opportunity to take in a recent match in The North-West Counties Premier Division between Bury AFC and Charnock Richard. The purpose of doing this was to give our members an insight into what an Assessor looks for in the performance of the officials, whilst at the same time allowing them to carry out an assessment of their own.

The match was refereed by Level 4 Kavan Hurn, who we are pleased to say has received a mid-season promotion and will referee at Level 3 from the 1st February 2023. He was being assisted by Jake Sands and our very own David Cryer.

All attendees were provided with a blank assessment form and asked to make notes on Kavan’s performance. They were looking for positive and negative aspects and afterwards submit a report detailing what mark they’d give him and offer feedback on how they attained this score.

The game finished 1-0 to the home side in awful weather. A driving wind and difficult surface made it tough for the players throughout, but they were excellently managed by Kavan and his team and it will be interesting to see how members marked his performance. He finished with a caution for each side, including Charnock Richard’s number 5 Simon Grand, a former professional with the likes of Rochdale and Carlisle. It was nice to see Grandy hadn’t lost any of his enthusiasm for offering advice to the match officials.

We are still in the process of collecting the assessments back but it will be interesting to see how many of them are around the current Level 4 group average of 72.32.

The only negative aspect of the night was how few members attended. This was a unique opportunity to stand next to officials who operate at a high standard and learn from them how to get the best mark possible when you have an Assessor in attendance. Rochdale RA paid the admission fee to get into the game and certain members gave up their evening to be there and try and help others progress. A sincere thanks to those that did attend, we hope you enjoyed the evening, such a shame there wasn’t more of us.

Speaker Update

RRA is delighted to be able to announce the details of upcoming speakers:

October – Paul Graham
Paul is a former PGMOL Assistant Referee who retired in the summer after 15 years service at the professional level. Upon retiring, Paul took up a position of Assistant Referee Coach with PGMOL in The Womans Game and he now works full-time with officials looking to progress on this pathway. Paul is a huge supporter of Northern Ireland and travels the world following Ian Baraclough’s side.

November – Denis McCarthy
Denis is now an Observer working for The FA. He regularly attends matches in the local area carrying out assessments on referees from Level 7 down to Level 4 who are looking to get promoted. If you are one of these officials, make sure you don’t miss Denis’s presentation as it will give you an insight into what the man in the stands is looking for in your performance.

Free Membership

Any individual that has recently passed the new referees course with either Manchester FA or Lancashire FA is now eligible for free membership to Rochdale Referees Association for the remainder of the 2022/23 season.

The decision was made at a recent Committee Meeting in order to help new match officials in the region and give them that support mechanism as they start their journey as a referee. It can be tough at times as we all know, so having that support from fellow referees in the area is vital.

Free membership is on offer to anybody that passes the new referees course in the 2022/23 season and that entitles you to all the benefits that current members receive.

Rochdale Referees Association meet on the 3rd Thursday of each month at Rochdale Sports Club and we have members at all levels of the game. We have been blessed to have some an array of magnificent speakers down the years, and each month we invite a different speaker to come and chat to members about their experiences of refereeing the beautiful game.

If you would like to take advantage of this free offer, please email Secretary Ian Claridge at rochdalerasec@gmail.com.

James Mainwaring Visits RRA

Long-term friend of RRA James Mainwaring will be our Guest Speaker on the 15th September 2022. For those that don’t know, James is a Premier League Assistant Referee having reached the elite level of the game in 2019. He has since officiated on over 50 PL matches and now also has the honour of running the line in Europa Conference games.

All current members are welcome to attend, and a gentle reminder that subscriptions for the 2022/23 season are now due. If you are new to refereeing and haven’t been to a meeting before, please come along and introduce yourself and see for yourself how you can benefit from being a member.

The meeting will be held at Rochdale Sports Club (Rochdale Cricket Club) from 7.30pm on Thursday 15th September.

August Meeting

New 1st year EFL referee Thomas Parsons made a welcome return to Rochdale RA in August to speak to our members about his promotion to the profesional game.

Thomas is an adopted-Rochdalian having moved to the town 7 years ago. In his presentation he told those present about how he started refereeing as a 14 year-old in and around Tameside area before progressing through to officiate on The Manchester League.

After many years of hard work making his way through the system, the 30 year-old got his reward this summer after being promoted from The National League to The EFL. To enable him to do this he had many challenges along the way, and he went through some of these when discussing ‘Getting The Big Decisions Correct.”

RRA would like to thank Tom for taking the time to visit us and we look forward to seeing him at future meetings.

Subscriptions Now Due

As we move towards the start of a new season, members (old and new) are reminded that subscriptions are now due. The Committee have held the prices for the 2022/23 season and we’d urge members to join online using the form below:

Fill out a membership application form online here

Our fees for the year are

Active Referees: £25

Non Active Referees/Social Membership: £10

Active Junior Referees/Active Referees in Full Time Education £12.50

Once members have completed the form online, they are asked to pay their fees via BACS to the following:

ACCOUNT – 24988940

SORT CODE – 05-07-22