Football refs keep it in the family
Southland father and son Owen and Alex Black are a familiar sight at Southland club football games on Saturday afternoons.
Owen referees Southland’s Donald Gray Cup and division one football fixtures, with Alex, 9, providing support as an assistant referee for his father.
Alex also plays junior football for Old Boys on Saturday mornings and shares his father’s passion for the game.
‘‘My young fella, he comes along and dresses like Dad, he runs the lines. I am teaching him some skills but he’s a bit too young to be refereeing at the moment. But all the teams seem to enjoy him and he is actually learning a few things,’’ Owen said.
‘‘He is just at the start of his career, but that is good, we will see how that goes.’’
Owen took up refereeing when he retired from playing 22 years ago after lacing up his boots for several clubs including Taradale, Napier, NZ Forces football and Hornby United.
The Southern Premier League linesman first picked up a whistle to give something back to the game.
‘‘I have been involved in football since I was 5 years old.’’
He said they were always on the lookout for more whistleblowers.
He thinks Southland is quite fortunate to have four or five top referees, with Craig Smith and Craig Campbell on the list to coach national football league competitions. He also believes that there will always be excitement and emotions during a game.
‘‘No matter what level, it is just a matter of being able to focus both teams so they don’t get out of hand. Sometimes you can do it better than other times.
‘‘It’s sad, but there is a lot of abuse and foul language coming back into the game directed at referees and in general.’’
‘‘It is more teams just being frustrated and taking it out, which is unfortunate, although we understand it, it doesn’t help if you are trying to get young people coming through to take up the whistle and referee, the last thing they need to be is abused on the field.’’
‘‘Like everyone else we are not perfect, we get it wrong occasionally, but most of the top level referees we have here are not too proud to tell a team that we may have got that wrong, but I had to call it on how I saw it, the teams respect that.’’