Having started his umpiring career with Riddell Umpires back in 2007, Jordan Andrews has come a long way when he walked onto the Sydney Showgrounds to officiate his 100th AFL game – GWS Giants v Brisbane on Saturday 18th July 2020.
He also made a bit of history when he was part of a 5-boundary umpire team – the first in AFL history – sharing the honours with Matthew Tomkins, Shane Thiele, Josh Mather and Patrick Jackson.
Jordan joined the AFL list in 2015 and umpired his first AFL match Western Bulldogs v St Kilda in round 13 at Etihad Stadium. The Dogs led by 22 points half way through the last quarter when St Kilda staged a comeback, hanging on to eventually win by 6 points.
Jordan has loved every minute since, having shared every moment of his journey with family and friends. He admits there has been some battles and challenges on the journey so far and that there will be more in the future, but he feels privileged to be able to umpire at the highest level. His biggest learning so far has been the importance of performing consistently at a high level for the entire season and enjoying what he does.
His career highlight to date was umpiring his first final in 2019 between Geelong and Collingwood and the opportunity to umpire the AFL’s first premiership season game in Shanghai, China in 2017. In trying to assess his most enjoyable game to date, he admits any game he runs with Chris Roberts is highly entertaining, but if he had to choose a particular game it would be the Hawthorn v Geelong clash back in 2018, with the Hawks winning by a point in a high scoring affair.
In preparing for his games, Jordan always has a pizza the night before and remembers to use Riteq before walking into the rooms.
Jordan loves having a front row seat to every game he officiates in and to play his role in servicing the game. He says, “Everyone on the boundary group are supportive of each other and don’t mind throwing a little bit of banter amongst each other.”
Covid19 has certainly thrown challenges his way but Jordan is mindful of how fortunate he is to be in the position he is. He continued training hard when the AFL season was postponed, and he had to provide a learning program for remote teaching online for the school he teaches at. To take his mind off football, Jordan loves Go Karting and playing online games on the PS4.
Congratulations and well done Jordan on your 100th game!