Tournament blog

IBSA, Fish and Chips and Referees

When I did my first blog last week and made the bold statement that I would do this every week, one of my colleague’s words went something like ‘yeah, right’.

Well in terms of things to talk about it remains to be seen whether I can last the full 26 weeks but there is certainly lots to describe from the week gone by.

Firstly we had colleagues from IBSA over to ‘inspect’ the facilities and our plans for the event. The delegation consisted of Carlos Campos and his colleague and interpreter David Stirton. Both are based in Madrid, with Carlos an Argentinean by birth (and first class Futsal Coach) and David originally from Scotland. Having not visited the UK for some time one of David’s highlights was a trip to the fish and chip shop.

The meeting with them took an age as everything that was said was interpreted from English to Spanish and then back again. We managed to agree the method for the draw which will take place in April. Without going into detail it looks like we will have 8 teams in the pot, with England and Argentina pre seeded. For the 8 teams we will have 6 pots! We will no doubt make FIFA and UEFA proud of our efforts!

All in all I think they were impressed with not only the facilities but also the level of detail that we have planned at this stage.

Along with the IBSA visit we also had a referee’s seminar. We selected a small group of referees from very different backgrounds to undertake intensive training. And it was!

The refs arrived on Friday night and after a quick briefing and some food went to bed in the College’s Scandinavian lodges. They started at 9 am on Saturday morning and finished just short of 7pm on Saturday night having undertaken a wholly theoretical session. This involved watching a 42 minute DVD on 3 occasions to identify various aspects of movement and decision making – rather them than me!

After a well deserved night of relaxation in Hereford the referees put their theory into practice on Sunday morning officiating in a series of small sided games with the England team. The tutor for the weekend, Elias flew in from Greece. Elias is a professional Chess teacher by trade and one of the most experienced referees in Blind football in the world. He refereed the last Paralympic Final in Beijing. I think he was impressed by the standard of the referees but less so by the visit to the local pub. We hope that this is the start of a pathway for one or more of the officials to go on and referee in future Paralympics, including and beyond London 2012.

Our final bit of a hectic weekend was spent with the England players, watching them train and speaking to them as a group about the event. What came across strongly is the desire for the event and its impact to represent them in the right way. I cannot speak for them – they can do that most eloquently themselves, but I certainly think that they are fed up with people feeling sorry for them. The players want people to come and see them in action and be impressed (or not) with the skills they possess as footballers.

As an a side we also met and spent some time with a filmmaker, who is interested in making a documentary about the event from a human interest angle. Whether this happens or not is outside of my control but if it does the stories that the players have to tell will be an inspiration to many.

Posted by Jon Dutton on 17-02-2010

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