Umpiring Retention, Recruiting And Development

[pazza]

For me, one of the biggest problems the game has got is that at local level, the ability of competitions to retain, recruit and develop umpires.

Part of it comes from the general lack of respect for those who do it each week...and the kids trying to learn to do it.

Part of it comes from the want of other things taking up the time of people.

And I am sure there's other reasons for the problem ever growing generally.

So I am going to throw open the debate for everyone - what can the AFL, State Football Bodies, Local Football Bodies, ourselves and anyone else interested do to help make the game stronger?

[Super Goalie]

Stop the abuse at all levels, and retention rates will soar. :thumbsu:

[eddiesmith]

Money will get people interested

We got paid well in the Ammos imo but other leagues are very low in comparison

[pazza]

There has to be more to it than the above.

I think the programs now being seen at school level are to be admired for getting the right pattern started.

I was reading the Werribee Banner today and in the WRFL, the ratio of field umpires to players - where it should be 1 to 18, is 1 to 500. How bloody low is that! The parents umpiring junior footy on Sundays because there is no-one else to do it should be appaluded by everybody in that regard especially.

For me, I'd like to see some sort of adult recruitment campaign get started from say AFL Victoria. Yes, have a pay rate that better reflects the role the umpires at local level pay and have the development programs that the AFL have in place and expand them, making them more attractable for people to take part in.

Make the accreditation process after that even better than what it already is.

And so on.

The important thing is that such programs need to put into place now and made more generalised across the board. If it's stuffed up by inaction, then the problems will only exacerbate.

[nicho_magic]

the problem starts with abuse. people can't handle it, and don't feel the need to handle it so therefor don't umpire. i don't think people realise however when you are out there its not too bad and you don't notice it really, but you also have to just laugh it off on occassions as some of it is very funny, as its just so incorrect.

the other problems include peoples lack of knowledge of how fit you get, and the friends you can make through umpiring, as well as pay which can be an issue for some.

a lot of the time people just need to be put out there if they are half interested, with the appropriate support networks and training to see how they enjoy it.

[Juza]

I'm an Umpire & the problem doesn't start with Abuse. Most new umpires don't attend training & meetings after the first few rounds. They don't listen to what the Umpire coaches have to say & muck around with their friends at the back. Then when they get their appointments go & compare to see what everyone else got. Another problem is, some umpires don't know much about footy. Barly touched a footy or even kicked one (it's true). They don't know the rules & don't read the rule book when asked. They wouldn't get abused by parents if they paided the right descisions & knew the rules. The descision you have to pay the most is head High Tackle, because that sends anyone angry when thats not paided. Mentors tell them where to improve, but their mainly doing it for the money & are lazy to go & improve. After their first year, they don't do it because they can;t be bothered & have been abused. Abuse can go to a level in Jnr Footy. Calling an Umpire a Dhead or Shit is wrong. Calling out Ball or Come on Ump is ok. I don't mind it. When you start calling Umpires names, Thats taking it to far.

[ubolt]

well said Juza

it's definitely not the abuse: out on the field you generally can't hear it anyway because you are concentrating so much, you occasionally hear something, but it means nothing. The only thing to fear from the crowd is walking off after a game, where there is generally little security and you walk through at times angry supporters, and supporters who yell things that generally don't make sense because they are too drunk. No *normal* spectator would grab an umpire walking off though.

As far as i'm concerned it's the thought of an easy dollar. Get paid a reasonable amount of money (which is generally tax-free) to do not much. Which is obviously not the case, you get paid a reasonable dollar, but you do a lot of damn hard work but for almost any umpire who sticks at it does it for the love of the game rather than for the dollar.

Another is fitness...I see guys come out to training we say welcome, say hello, introduce them to everyone, then in 2-3 weeks we never see them again. It takes a lot of damn hard work to get to the fitness level required, training helps, but it is hard, and people don't want to work that hard for something which could get them no-where.

Finally, another problem which is totally un-related to footy is the fact kids/teenagers join up for a bit of a run, a bit of fitness work and a bit of money, then they get jobs and they have to work Saturdays and Sundays. Where there is more money involved and more opportunities for a career. Students attend school (and University) then go to work Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays therfore less time is spent for sporting adventures (and umpiring). This is a problem for players and umpires around the nation, of any sport. Sport takes up too much time, employers don't like it, so either you don't get a job, or you give up sport. This is my situation - i've only just got a job. Still umpiring too. But i've been told by MANY employers that because i am unavailable weekends (because of sporting commitments) that they don't see the point in hiring me because someone else is generally available 24/7.

My thoughts on it all anyway...

[docker_azza]

I'm umpiring junior footy atm and I am getting really turned off umpiring 9s/10s. Mainly because of the extra rules such as wrap around tackles, no bumping, no sheperding, no stealing, no smothering. Given that I also umpire open rules and 11s/12s rules, its too many sets of rules for me to concentrate on and I'd rather just concentrate on open rules, where its all at if you want to develop into a good umpire.

I also think that theres problems with personnel at the top (eg umpire coaches, co-ordinators). Some of them are tossers. Theres ones who think they are never wrong about anything and make concepts more harder to understand and complex than what they actually are. One of my friends got turned off this year because of an umpiring coach who had this problem.

[VanBerlo=God]

For me, one of the biggest problems the game has got is that at local level, the ability of competitions to retain, recruit and develop umpires.

Part of it comes from the general lack of respect for those who do it each week...and the kids trying to learn to do it.

Part of it comes from the want of other things taking up the time of people.

And I am sure there's other reasons for the problem ever growing generally.

So I am going to throw open the debate for everyone - what can the AFL, State Football Bodies, Local Football Bodies, ourselves and anyone else interested do to help make the game stronger?
more pay, and have the AFL level coaches visit the league umpires several times per season to give speeches and take training.

Most new umpires don't attend training & meetings after the first few rounds. They don't listen to what the Umpire coaches have to say & muck around with their friends at the back. Then when they get their appointments go & compare to see what everyone else got.This is a big problem with the kids who just never shut up down the back, while the guys and girls who are at least serious want to hear what the coaches are jabbering about down front while scribbling on the board.

I was reading the Werribee Banner today and in the WRFL, the ratio of field umpires to players - where it should be 1 to 18, is 1 to 500. How bloody low is that! The parents umpiring junior footy on Sundays because there is no-one else to do it should be appaluded by everybody in that regard especially. We don't even have enough umpires to fill the division 1 reserves.

It goes 1 seniors, 2 seniors, 18's (which isn't always filled), 1 reserves, 2 reserves. It is very difficult atm for younger guys to force their way into the top tier because of lack of competition. Can't force our way into the 2 seniors because we don't have anyone to compete with, and are constantly stuck in the 18's.

Another is fitness...I see guys come out to training we say welcome, say hello, introduce them to everyone, then in 2-3 weeks we never see them again. It takes a lot of damn hard work to get to the fitness level required, training helps, but it is hard, and people don't want to work that hard for something which could get them no-where.

Finally, another problem which is totally un-related to footy is the fact kids/teenagers join up for a bit of a run, a bit of fitness work and a bit of money, then they get jobs and they have to work Saturdays and Sundays. Where there is more money involved and more opportunities for a career. Students attend school (and University) then go to work Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays therfore less time is spent for sporting adventures (and umpiring). This is a problem for players and umpires around the nation, of any sport. Sport takes up too much time, employers don't like it, so either you don't get a job, or you give up sport. This is my situation - i've only just got a job. Still umpiring too. But i've been told by MANY employers that because i am unavailable weekends (because of sporting commitments) that they don't see the point in hiring me because someone else is generally available 24/7. Yeah the fitness is definitely the turning point. You either put the effort in or piss off. The kids don't want to run 8km on a monday night when they could be home playing playstation, and 8km of sprints on a wednesday night and sitting around at the meeting till 8pm when they could be on the net chatting on msn. It usually takes 1 weekend to turn anyone off umpiring. They go and try it, see how much work they have to do and just throw in the towel.

I work fulltime, lucky for me it finishes this week (5 months of work) and I have umpired the entire time. I can only attend 1 session per week and thats wednesday, I don't have much personal time, I attempted to study fulltime as well which didn't work because i prioritised umpiring ahead of it.
If you are dedicated to it, then you can always reason with the boss. If they want you enough they will be flexible (unless its like working at safeway or something, which they will say get stuffed).

Just need more money for the junior developing umpires, $55/game for div 1 seniors boundary is bugger all. At least the division 1 seniors field umps get upwards of $110/game. put at least 25% on top, and you could probably attract and retain a lot more umpires.

[TFLUA-Tiger]

more pay, and have the AFL level coaches visit the league umpires several times per season to give speeches and take training.

This is a big problem with the kids who just never shut up down the back, while the guys and girls who are at least serious want to hear what the coaches are jabbering about down front while scribbling on the board.

We don't even have enough umpires to fill the division 1 reserves.

It goes 1 seniors, 2 seniors, 18's (which isn't always filled), 1 reserves, 2 reserves. It is very difficult atm for younger guys to force their way into the top tier because of lack of competition. Can't force our way into the 2 seniors because we don't have anyone to compete with, and are constantly stuck in the 18's.

Yeah the fitness is definitely the turning point. You either put the effort in or piss off. The kids don't want to run 8km on a monday night when they could be home playing playstation, and 8km of sprints on a wednesday night and sitting around at the meeting till 8pm when they could be on the net chatting on msn. It usually takes 1 weekend to turn anyone off umpiring. They go and try it, see how much work they have to do and just throw in the towel.

I work fulltime, lucky for me it finishes this week (5 months of work) and I have umpired the entire time. I can only attend 1 session per week and thats wednesday, I don't have much personal time, I attempted to study fulltime as well which didn't work because i prioritised umpiring ahead of it.
If you are dedicated to it, then you can always reason with the boss. If they want you enough they will be flexible (unless its like working at safeway or something, which they will say get stuffed).

Just need more money for the junior developing umpires, $55/game for div 1 seniors boundary is bugger all. At least the division 1 seniors field umps get upwards of $110/game. put at least 25% on top, and you could probably attract and retain a lot more umpires.

Here in the SFL for Tassie Div 1. senior Boundary is $70 and Div 1. Senior Field $130.

Good pay, but another 10 % would be nice so younger blokes aren't being forced to spend all of their pay on travel, etc.

[ubolt]

SFL here in Adelaide is similar to the Tassie SFL by the looks of it:

I think it's $110 for Senior A Grade Field
$60 for Boundary Umpire (we only supply boundary to A Grade in regular season: mainly due to lack of numbers/so many games to fill - finals we supply Boundaries for every grade)
$58 for Goal Umpire

the money isn't too bad, a bit of extra pocket money for the week, that's about it really.

[docker_azza]

Was talking to my co-ordinator yesterday. Fopr much of the seaso n he has been basically saying that he wants a big crackdown on spectators coming on to the field and abusing umpires because he has lost quite s few umpires from last year as a result of abuse, particularly from spectators whom they can't do anything about.

[ubolt]

How's this for a lack of respect from my game on Saturday just gone:

2 or 3 kids playing kick-to-kick footy right on the boundary line (during the A Grade game mind you), i run past them and just ask them if they can please move back and get off the ground. A fan with a beer in his hand is walking past at the same time and says to me "give it a break ********, they're just kids", my reply was "what would happen if injured one of them", he immediately shot back with "it would make you feel more like a man wouldn't it? I know you fuc**** only feel like real men when you've got a ball in your hand"

now i know the easy thing would have been not to reply to him at all, but you don't want to injure anyone out on the ground, no matter what age. Next time i ran past i could have knocked a kid over if i wanted to and not had to worry about repercussions because i had already told them to get out of the way.

We can't even try and protect people this day and age :(

[TFLUA-Tiger]

How's this for a lack of respect from my game on Saturday just gone:

2 or 3 kids playing kick-to-kick footy right on the boundary line (during the A Grade game mind you), i run past them and just ask them if they can please move back and get off the ground. A fan with a beer in his hand is walking past at the same time and says to me "give it a break ********, they're just kids", my reply was "what would happen if injured one of them", he immediately shot back with "it would make you feel more like a man wouldn't it? I know you fuc**** only feel like real men when you've got a ball in your hand"

now i know the easy thing would have been not to reply to him at all, but you don't want to injure anyone out on the ground, no matter what age. Next time i ran past i could have knocked a kid over if i wanted to and not had to worry about repercussions because i had already told them to get out of the way.

We can't even try and protect people this day and age :(

I got the same thing on the weekend. I was emergency field umpiring a final and my main job was to keep guys off the ground. Boy they didn't like it at all when I politely told them to get off, I even got a registered player swearing his head off at me. He quitened down when I threatened him with report though.

[Jim Boy]

At the highest level, umpires need to be more accessible. When you talk to the average footy fan today, many say the umpires of the seventies were the best. Were they better? I doubt it. But what they did do was that every Sunday morning you had the "what's your decision?" segment on WOS. The umps were plyed two or three contentious decisions and asked to explain. Far more often than not, they showed that the decisions they paid were correct, and when they were wrong, well it seemed to be an abberration.

Now the top umps are so highly protected and removed from the public that they almost seem arrogant and unaccountable for their decisions. If this is how the top umps are perseived, then the filter through effect to the 99% of umps who aren't AFL suggests that they are arrogant an unaccountable as well.

[eddiesmith]

How's this for a lack of respect from my game on Saturday just gone:

2 or 3 kids playing kick-to-kick footy right on the boundary line (during the A Grade game mind you), i run past them and just ask them if they can please move back and get off the ground. A fan with a beer in his hand is walking past at the same time and says to me "give it a break ********, they're just kids", my reply was "what would happen if injured one of them", he immediately shot back with "it would make you feel more like a man wouldn't it? I know you fuc**** only feel like real men when you've got a ball in your hand"

now i know the easy thing would have been not to reply to him at all, but you don't want to injure anyone out on the ground, no matter what age. Next time i ran past i could have knocked a kid over if i wanted to and not had to worry about repercussions because i had already told them to get out of the way.

We can't even try and protect people this day and age :(
I got headbutted in the groin when there were kids running around the goal area one week :p

[Father Jack]

My experience of umpiring was pretty short, I started having second thoughts and replied to the email detailing the weekend appointments (preseason praccy matches) that I wouldn't be able to make it. The following week the umpiring director emailed me asking me why I didn't turn up, I replied saying I emailed saying I wouldn't be able to, sorry if you didn't get the message; and I never heard from them again. Made my decision to resign from the caper so much easier.

Certainly not how I would go about trying to retain potential umpires though. Unless of course they just plain didn't want me there, but they could have just told me.

[jerry springer]

I used to umpire in country qld and then in brisbane, umpiring under 17's and below

It wasnt so bad in the country but i really got discouraged when I did it in metro Brisbane.I remember a few times the 2nd field umpire didnt show up
so you do the entire field by yourself which is ok if its say under 13's and below but can get a lot harder as the age groups increase and speed of the game goes up, so of course you are going to miss a few things,but the level of abuse just got too much.I was getting paid a little a game(about $16 from memory)but I wasn't doing it for the money mainly for fitness so I packed it in.

one game these idiots were waiting near my car after i had showered abusing me and i thought that will do it.

Its been about 5 years since then but thinking of getting back into it next year in north qld.

[eddiesmith]

ABuse is overrated, who cares? I was abused one day for a poor decision and the club officials abused me and guaranteed I wouldnt umpire again, next week I was in a higher grade :p and put it all behind me

[VanBerlo=God]

ABuse is overrated, who cares? I was abused one day for a poor decision and the club officials abused me and guaranteed I wouldnt umpire again, next week I was in a higher grade :p and put it all behind me
i was threatened last weekend by a few players.

no problems they left the ground quick smart, and i umpired this weekend.

its not so much the threats, its if you can take it. If you are going to let it worry you, then just forget about being in football altogether.

besides, my league this year has had a horrid run with acts against umpires.