Best of luck to all umpires representing the SFNL over this coming interleague weekend. The umpires selected will be the youngest crew we have ever put forward and we are all extremely proud of their achievements thus far in the season.
Field – Nick, Nick, Sheldon and Ryan
Boundary – Caleb, Jacob, Courtney and Olivia
Goal, Damon, John and Matthew
Kevin Mitchell and his helpers have done an amazing job in distributing our new uniform – well done, team! If you haven’t picked up your uniform or put in an order we urge you to get down to training or organise someone to pick up your uniform.
Training at Linton St has been going smoothly and the White Knight is most impressed by the way all umpires have adjusted to a change of venue. The spaces that we have been given are serving their purpose and it’s been great seeing large numbers of umpires at training each week.
We have just passed 300 registered members for the fourth year in a row. The positive thing about this number is that 72% is made up of returning umpires. Credit to all umpires for wanting to be part of the game and taking up the challenge of being an umpire in one of the most complicated games in the world to officiate.
Congratulations to the SFNLUA for supporting Beyond Blue Round last week. What a terrific way to get behind a worthy cause! It was great to see all the umpires running around with blue armbands over the weekend.
We welcome Les Stuart to the SFNL Umpiring Department. Les will be our trainer for the remainder of the season and we thank him for what he will be doing for us. It was good to see some of Natalie’s old regulars taking advantage of Les for his first week down at training.
Last weekend, several SFNLUA members who appear to be members of the Melbourne Victory Ultras headed to Sydney for the A-League semi-final. The lads were not impressed when they went a goal down in the opening minutes and by the time Sydney scored their sixth goal, they appeared shattered. Bergs was a little tired and emotional while Tev was praying for the rain that he hadn’t forecast. On the train journey back to Central, they endured the taunts of the Sydney supporters but were too miserable to respond. However, the mood changed at Redfern when, as the train doors were closing, Tev was hip and shouldered out the door and was last seen waving angrily from the platform at his umpiring colleagues who were laughing happily as the train continued its journey.
James Aitken evidently is a budding street artist. The White Knight has it on good authority that he has been using electrical shape to create artistic designs on fellow umpires’ car windows. Judging by the size of his artwork, he is not into doing self-portraits.
Over the last 2 weeks, one of our boundaries could be seen doing a facepalm on the field, while watching as the other boundary had jumped over the fence to retrieve the ball. A reminder to all umpires that we do not go over the fence to retrieve the ball. Ask a player or a crowd member nicely to retrieve the ball for you.
Remember that:
“The Ump in Green Should Not Be Seen” and
“We Bounce, We Blow, The Rules We Know”