Howard Webb alongside Malcolm Langley at the recent Bishop Auckland referees meeting

On Thursday 20th November I was lucky enough, along with fellow Sunderland RA members Graeme Fyvie and Shaun Hudson, to be amongst a packed Bishop Auckland Cricket Club to here a most informative talk by FIFA Referee Howard Webb at the Bishop Auckland RA meeting.

Howard talked openly about his career and used a really informative presentation about him refereeing in Euro 2008 and the problems that enused after he awarded a last minute penalty (It was a Stonewall Bang On Pen in my opinion) to Austria with Poland leading 1-0.
 
It was a great night all round and Howard was only too pleased to talk to young and older referees alike afterwards.  Howard had only arrived back at Heathrow Airport that morning after refereeing Greece v Italy the night before. 
 
What A Gentelman he is,
Cheers
Malcolm Langley

Tags: Bishop Aukland Referees Association

(left to right: Billy Khatib, David Webb and Geoff Eltringham)

Sunderland society was finally pleased to welcome David Webb to Rutland Street , two months later than planned.

Our society was also pleased to welcome along members of the Sunderland AFC veterans supporters club to our meeting who were joined by a healthy number of our own members.

David has made an excellent start to his first year as a football league referee having served one year on the list as a football league assistant.

Located in Stanley County Durham David started refereeing just over 10 years ago , officiating regular in the Consett Sunday league along with running the line in the Wearside league , it didn't take long for the refereeing bug to start to bite and Dave quickly worked his way up the refereeing ladder , the Wearside league was followed by the Northern league (contrib) and then onto the list as a football conference referee where he had the delight of officiating at wembley on the Football conference play off final , along with acting as a football league assistant referee.

After an excellent 1st season on the conference David was given the chance to join the list of football league referees , and he has grabbed the opportunity with both hands achieving good reports from both clubs and assessors and was recently appointed to referee the Victory shield international between England & Scotland at Lincoln City’s Sincel Bank , a game which was shown live on Sky Sports.

In early 2009 Dave will be England’s representative at the prestige’s Dallas Cup international youth tournament which includes teams like Real Madrid , Barcelona , AC Milan & Manchester United which speaks volumes for how Dave is regarded in the refereeing circuit.

David started the meeting with a brief insight on how he got started becoming a referee along with his early highs & lows , with the aid of the projector & DVD he then went into discuss his early impressions & experiences as a football league referee.

The floor were shown various clips of Daves games and which provided alot of good talking points , there was a lot of positive practice which i'm sure our members could introduce into there games along with certain things David would have done different in other games.

What was refreshing was that although David has risen to the top of the refereeing ladder very quickly , he has remained the same level headed , down to earth person that alot of our members remember working with on the Wearside and Northern league, and i'm sure when David continues his quest to the top he won't let success go to his head and will still have time for the people who helped him achieve his goal.

After his presentation which lasted just over an hour David took time to answer questions and interact with our members whilst enjoying the buffet which was well received by all in attendance.

Sunderland Referees Society would like to wish David Webb all the best in what I'm sure will be a long and successful career.


David Webb (bottom centre) along with Geoff Eltringham at this years USA Cup

Tags: Event, Guest Speaker, David Webb