Now the season is underway after what seemed to be an even shorter break here is the list of senior Wirral officials for this season and an idea what leagues/games they will officiate on.

Level 1 / International

Mike Dean
Mike Jones

Select Group Referee - Refereeing Premier League and High Profile Football League games. Mike Dean is also a FIFA Referee - European and International Appointments worldwide.

Level 2B

Rob Jones
Steve Copeland

Panel Referees - Refereeing Conference North/South games and Premier League EPP Premier Division games. Also assistant referees on Football League.


Level 3

Neil Davies**
Andy Hutchinson**

John Dowd*
Dave Croft*

Mark Cunliffe
Peter Gibbons
Joel Ledsham

Contrib Referees - Referee Northern Premier League, North West Counties League, Premier League EPP League 1 and the Central League (Reserves). Level 3’s assist on the EPP Premier Division and Conference North/South fixtures unless promoted to Panel Select or Football League.


** Football League Assistants

* Panel Select Assistants - Exclusively Appointed to Conference Premier games only.

Jack has announced that a new referees’ course will be begin 15th October 2012 at Lairds, which will run for several weeks thereafter to complete the course.

Jack can be contacted using the details here. Spaces are limited so we suggest if you are interested you should secure your place soon.

Following the recent meeting of the IFAB the following law amendments have been introduced.

These are available to download from here as part of a powerpoint presentation.

The changes relate to Commercial Advertising, Sock Tape Colour, Restart of Play from a drop ball and clarification of the word blatant.

The one which therefore will affect use on a week to week basis is Sock Tap and the restart if play from drop balls.

For clarity, a drop ball which is then scored from by the opponents will become a goal kick and an ‘own goal’ from the drop ball will result in the award of a corner.

Sock Tape is a difficult situation. Wirral RA suggest that common sense is used at the grass roots levels and Referees on the West Cheshire Panel and above would be expected to be pro active with this law change.

Following a number of extremely serious cases that have arisen recently in other County FAs, it is appropriate to ask readers to be extremely mindful of how they use social networking media. No matter how secure privacy settings may be on a user's own site, it is impossible to control the identity of friends of friends, who may be able to access the user's page and see his/her comments.

In order to protect themselves and their own integrity, referees are strongly advised that under no circumstances should they comment on social networking sites on disciplinary action taken in games on which they have officiated, naming individual clubs or players. Nor should referees discuss on such sites anything that could possibly be used to question their impartiality or integrity, such as expressing opinions about the general attitudes and behaviour of clubs or of individual players. The same principles apply to expressing views on such sites about specific competitions, County FAs and, indeed, the FA.

Recently our colleagues at Cheshire FA has had to investigate a complaint about such comments made by a referee and has issued him with appropriate advice. Other County FAs have taken disciplinary action against referees in grassroots football, imposing hefty suspensions, following more serious cases. In the same way, disciplinary action against clubs and players is becoming much more frequent both at national level and at County FA level in respect of messages on social networking sites.

Any referees who aspire to progress to higher levels of football should also remember that what they say on these sites might well be stored on the internet long after they have stopped using the sites themselves: comments about higher levels of football (or about the clubs and players competing in it) can come back to haunt an official in years to come and might have a negative impact on his/her career progression.

So please think before you comment on a social network site: make sure that you always protect your own image and that of the refereeing family in general.