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Ian “Buzz” Burrows came into the year on the back of his 7th grand final in 2016 needing two games to move to 250 in his outstanding career.  He’s not sure whether he walked in front of a black cat, stood on a crack or walked under a ladder (we know he broke his toe when he fell over a dog) but 2017 has been a year he’d prefer to forget.  In his return game, Buzz umpired with his good mates, Adam Coote, Michael Marantelli and Rob Haala in the Geelong v Richmond match.  Well done Buzz.  

Harry Beitzel passed away on August 13th in Gosford hospital following a brief illness, aged 90.  While Harry was renowned for his 16 years of media work on numerous Melbourne radio stations and for his now innovative “Galahs” trip where he took the best Australian Rules players overseas to play what we now know to be the Ireland International Rules Series, Harry was a VFL umpire.

The NFL took an important step Wednesday in what has been a five-year process to convert its officials into full-time league employees. After months of negotiations prompted by the NFL competition committee, the NFL Referees Association (NFLRA) agreed to the structure of a modest transition during the course of the 2017 season.

Ian ‘Buzza’ Burrows started his boundary umpiring journey with the Yarra Valley Mountain District Football League back in the year 2000. Seventeen years later he will umpire in his 250th AFL match on Saturday afternoon at Simmonds Stadium. Alongside the significant milestone match this weekend sits 29 finals, 7 Grand Finals in (08, 10, 10 replay, 12, 14, 15 & 16) and 3 All-Australian jackets in (10, 12 & 15). It’s fair to say that since Ian’s first AFL match between Collingwood and Adelaide in 2006, he has elevated himself to be one of the most consistent and best boundary umpires in AFL history. 

It is with pleasure that I bring to you Ronald Keith Bailey J.P., one of the hardest workers for our association that you would ever meet. Nothing is too much for Ron as he prepares and organizes the X-men umpire functions, held at Mornington for the blokes and Darebin for the couples, as well as looking after umpires who are on tough times.

Steve Axon has always taken every opportunity to break records.  He umpired his first SANFL senior grand final as an 18-year-old.  A child protégé, success came to Steve because he has a relentless approach to training both physically and mentally.  He umpired in his first AFL grand final in 2007 after umpiring only 35 AFL games.  He became the first SA based goal umpire to achieve that feat.  Fast forward 10 years and Steve now becomes the first SA based goal umpire to achieve the 200 AFL game milestone.  Steve’s other great record is umpiring in 21 of the 43 showdowns.  Read Steve’s own story on how he learned his lessons from many great goal umpires in this website.

The fascination for goal umpiring started at a young age for Steve Axon, who this weekend will officiate his 200th game between Adelaide and Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval.

There is no doubt that a drawn game of football tantalises every statistician’s taste buds. Our own, David Flegg has had a great year providing us will all sorts of material. So I thought that for completeness it was only fair that I share some of his absolute pearls with you.

Congratulations this week must go to our two 100 game milestone achievers, Rob Taylor (boundary) and Andrew Mitchell (field).  Andrew umpired for 8 years and 150 games in the VFL before making the AFL list at age 30.  He is certainly resilient and not even a shoulder reconstruction at the end of 2016 meant that he lost a game through injury.  “I haven’t missed a game in 14 years due to injury,” said Andrew in an article for his 100th match.  The highlight would no doubt be his first final in 2014.