Simon Meredith felt fine, when he flew to Sydney two weeks ago to umpire the Swans’ game against Port Adelaide. He slept well, ate breakfast, watched some soccer on television, headed to the ground and warmed up well.
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.”
On Wednesday 25th of June a group of 10 field umpires gathered at Visy Park, to undertake their biweekly training session, commencing at 2pm. Due to the rain the previous day, ground one was quite soft making the field more difficult to train on.
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.
Boundary umpire Gerard Large surprised us all when he was called in to replace an ill Chris Esler on Sunday to officiate in his 150th AFL game. Gerard, who describes himself as a solid umpire is extremely resilient having only missed 2 games in 12 years due to illness.
BENDIGO’S Tristan Burgess says there’s nothing easy about umpiring, but it’s a challenge well worth taking up.
Boundary umpire Mitch Lefevre celebrated his 150th game on the weekend. Mitch, who commenced his career in Tasmania and moved to Melbourne in 2008 when he made the AFL list is one of the most liked team men in the group. Mitch has umpired six finals. See more on Mitch later in the week.