It only seems like yesterday that scoreboards and journalists were calling Brendan anything other than Hosking when he had his first game in 2012 between Greater Western Sydney and West Coast Eagles. “It became a little frustrating when nobody knew my real name,” exclaimed Brendan at the time. Fifty games on and perhaps he is wishing he had remained anonymous.
I wonder how many of you, like me, saw Michael Marantelli’s great running prowess and automatically assumed that his transition into umpiring came on the back of his elite running skills. Not so.
The culmination of all of the activities of the community umpiring round saw three young umpires walk in front of each AFL umpiring team onto AFL grounds all around the country on the weekend.
Jack Edwards became the 433rd field umpire to debut in a VFL/AFL game. Jack was in charge of the Melbourne v Hawthorn at the MCG on Saturday. Jack has come through the VFL ranks as a rising star. He umpired the TAC Cup grand final in 2012, the VFL development league grand final in 2013 and the VFL senior grand final in 2014 before being offered an AFL contract this season.
Please click here to listen to the audio from 3aw with AFL Field Umpire, Jordan Bannister.
AFL umpire Dean Margetts has urged football clubs throughout Australia to follow Hawthorn’s lead in a bid to build stronger relationships with whistleblowers.
Cameron Ward umpired just four AFL games in his first two seasons as a listed boundary umpire. To say that forged a level of determination and commitment is an understatement. What it also created was a man with patience and a very good life balance.
It took Frank 18 years of dedicated service to AFL umpiring to be awarded an honorary life membership and it took the association another five months to track him down and find a suitable place to present it to him.