Round 9 shorts: Eleni passes the test with flying colours

An extremely rare event occurred at 4pm on Sunday, the crowd around the umpires race in the Essendon v WCE game stood and applauded the umpires as they left the field.  Shaun Ryan and Simon Meredith looked bemu...

Prime Minister congratulates Eleni Glouftsis

Any cheers for an umpire are unexpected, but this shout-out might have had Eleni Glouftsis choking on her whistle as she prepares to become the first woman to officiate as a field umpire in a senior A...

Rob O’Gorman Reaches 50

On Saturday afternoon in Round 4, field umpire Rob O’Gorman notched up his 50th AFL match at Manuka Oval in Canberra.   Rob’s first official match was in Round 7 in 2014 between Hawthorn and St Kilda at...

Alan Lloyd ‘Froggy’ Thomson

“FROGGY” as he affectionately known was born on the 2nd of December 1945 to Sidney & Phyllis Thomson at Reservoir.  Alan has a brother Ian and in 1973 married Dianne.  They have two children, Christopher an...

Four quarters: Why AFL’s umpires are a key ingredient

When I met Shaun Ryan he'd just been in court, working as a barrister. He looked wide-awake and explained to me how he'd imposed on himself a "media ban" that he was breaking for this interview, in part because...