Small update

Well, not much to report on the refereeing front - I’m still very much in hibernation officiating wise. But thought I’d post a quick update to reassure everyone I’m still alive. As of now, I have no tournaments or friendlies pencilled in, which is unusual but I’m not overly worried. I’m hoping to get a couple of friendlies in August to get back into the swing of things, but tournaments don’t really appeal to me any more.

In personal life, I’ve been on holiday with a few mates to Magaluf, Majorca. Had a smashing week and was disappointed to return to the typical British weather. Ah well.

On the refereeing front, I was surprised to see the confirmed promotion of first-year football league referee Stuart Attwell to the Select Group of referees. He’ll become the youngest Premier League referee ever and also now has had a few consecutive promotions. One to look out for.

My season will start (barring friendlies and such) in the first week of September. Until then, enjoy the great British Summer (haha) and keep chilled.

ER

New Design

I’ve decided to give this place a fresh lick of virtual paint for next season. This includes a new banner and design. Not much has changed functionally but it looks a little different.

The banner at the moment is temporary until I have time to make a better one.

Any suggestions are welcome!

Also note I’ve cleared out some of the old pages, and over the summer will add new ones in their place. I’m hoping to get some RSS feeds of refereeing news up on the site, and will start a new tip of the week section with common scenarios. I’ve also changed the sidebars slightly to make everything less crowded.

Hope you like.

Changes

The blog will be undergoing some changes in the next few weeks so keep an eye out!

Training

I originally planned to restart training in July for next season, but had a change of heart and have decided to maintain my current level of fitness and look to improve it and my speed for next season.

So I’ve joined a gym. Previously, I had been independent for training, opting to train on local fields (so I’m as close to a match situation as possible) and using swimming baths. But I’ve finally decided that’s too tedious, and joined Fitness First.

So, for a few weeks I’ll be working just to maintain current fitness so I don’t lose any over the summer. Then after Majorca in a few weeks, I’ll step up to full training.

My main area for improvement is speed. Whilst I can move around the pitch comfortably, my sprinting isn’t all up to scratch. Now there’s not an awful lot you can do about that, some humans are naturally faster than others, but I’ll be working nevertheless on high-intensity running over longer periods. I’m not what you’d call slow, but this is an area to improve on.

This will help me not only to be fitter next season for more demanding matches, but also will prepare me for the possibility of a fitness test next year. If I get my level 5, I might have to do a fitness test. That’s looking far ahead but it’s something to aim for.

Until next time ciao!