News

Click here to view a story that was posted in the La Trobe Valley Express about former AFL Umpire Darren Fletcher.

Please click here for an article that was posted on the AFL Community website regarding the future of AFL Umpires in the Northern Territory.

Please click here to listen to a radio interview on ABC Grandstand with AFLUA President, Stefan Grun.

The umpiring crew in Darwin certainly had a big trip away, none more so than boundary umpire Michael Marantelli who ran in the Darwin City2surf fun run less than nine hours after he finished running the boundary in a physically demanding match, Port Adelaide v Western Bulldogs and won! The Darwin City2Surf Fun Run is a 12.7 kilometre run. Michael, who was very understated when we contacted him about the win, ran 41 minutes 23 seconds. It appears that no other umpiring identity in Darwin was prepared to get up and compete. Well done Michael.

Ask Leigh Fisher what his burning ambition is in umpiring and his reply is as quick and as focused as any umpire on the AFL list “a grand final of course!” Then comes a knowing pause and a statement with as much focus, “but that’s a long way off.”

A major AFL umpire recruitment drive will target women, former players and ethnic minorities in a bid to reverse a chronic umpiring shortage, as match-day officials continue to leave the game due to abuse.

BEING an Aussie Rules football umpire may not be among the sporting world’s easiest jobs every week, but the Northern District Football Umpires Association has supplied men and women in white – and nowadays orange – to do that job for five decades.

Each morning when I wake up, I reach for my I-Pad and turn on SEN radio, this is followed by downloading and reading the Herald Sun and The Age (sport only).  I head off for a morning run or ride and listen to podcasts from the weekend AFL games.  When I reach the office, SEN remains on via my computer and then in the evening I catch on any of the AFL games I missed over the weekend by watching replays via the AFL website.

In an ironic way the latest injury to AFL goal umpire Courtney Lai may well have clarified his speciality in medicine.