Field umpire Andrew Mitchell (Mitch) walked onto Blundstone Arena on Saturday quietly confident that he could handle whatever the game threw at him. “I had an eight year apprenticeship in the VFL with almost 150 senior games of experience. Five years ago it wasn’t kick, mark, play on as much as it is today. You had to learn how to manage players too.” reflected Andrew on the eve of his 50th AFL game.
We all know about Jordan’s footy career with Essendon and Carlton but it is his resurgence to get to 50 games as an umpire that has pleased him the most. “I was dying to get back,” reflected Jordan last week. “When my family came to terms with how to best support Ricky following his accident and things settled down I realised just how much I missed being involved.”
Brett Rosebury will become the first West Australian born umpire to reach 300 AFL games this coming weekend in the North Melbourne v. Geelong match on Saturday. Brett becomes the 18th field umpire in VFL/AFL history to reach the milestone. It is a milestone that only the very best achieve. In fact only two of the 18 to achieve the mark have not umpired a VFL/AFL grand final. He is the youngest man to debut as an AFL field umpire, aged 20, in the game’s history.
Ask Rob Taylor what his best or most enjoyable game was and he fires right back without any ego “I haven’t had it yet!” Rob goes on to say, “there were plenty of times in my short career when I didn’t think I’d make it to 50.”
Who was the last 21 year old with fifty games of AFL experience under his belt? Chris Simms maybe? Not sure really. One thing I do know is that this quietly spoken university student is passionate about a few things and one is certainly his footy.
School holidays mean a lot to our teaching colleagues, they can simply pack up and head home. What makes these holidays especially sweet for boundary umpire Shane Thiele is that he gets to umpire his 100th game in his old home state. “The SA guys have bent over backwards to help me achieve the milestone in SA and to do it in a showdown is even better,” said an excited Shane today when we called. Did we interrupt anything important? “No I was just watching Fox Sports News, I’m already home and kicking back.”
Queensland boundary umpire, Nick Wade achieves his 50 game milestone this weekend when Brisbane plays North Melbourne at the Gabba.
When first gamer Robert Whitehead walked onto the ground at Metricon Stadium last Saturday evening he allowed himself a look back up into the crowd to see his sister. It was she after all that introduced him to AFL football and goal umpiring. They even umpired community footy together in Queensland. They are each other’s biggest fans.
Evergreen boundary umpire, Luke Roberts breaks the all time number of games record by a Sydney/ACT based umpire in this weekends, GWS v Carlton game at Giants Stadium.