Ken Aston MBE

Dale Farm Milk Cup 2015
Dale Farm
Milk
Cup
FA Referee Development Group Report
2015
The Tournament
The team arrived on the evening of Saturday
25 July 2015.
Based in Port Stewart, their week began with
an informal meeting at the Lodge Hotel in
Coleraine where they were introduced to the
Milk Cup Referees Committee and some of the
participating Officials from Northern Ireland.
The tournament itself was set to begin on
the Monday, so there was time arranged for
the team to do some sightseeing around
the lovely coastal areas of Northern Ireland,
which included a trip to the famous Giant
Causeway. In the evening the traditional Milk
Cup Parade took place at Coleraine FC where
all the participating teams and officials were
introduced to a large and excited local crowd.
The next morning saw the assignment of the
first matches by the referees committee, in
which all three FA Referees were appointed
to referee on the first day. At the end of the
day they all met again for a review of the
day’s performances.
The rest of the week followed the same
structure. Appointments continued to be
distributed every morning and match cards
were returned either throughout the day or in
the evening to the Lodge Hotel. Kick-off times
were staggered during the day with 12
noon being the first and 7pm being the last.
This allowed some referees to have two games
on some days.
Following talks between The FA’s national referee manager
– volunteer workforce, Daniel Meeson and the Irish FA’s
referee manager, Lee Tavinder, an invitation was extended
for a team of English referees to officiate in the Dale Farm
Milk Cup.
Three Level 4 referees were selected from The FA’s Referee Development Group.
They were:
North East
Joe
Starkie
age 23
West Midlands
Tom
Reeves
age 23
Eastern Region
Chris
Darling
age 21
Gary Evetts, FA RDP Eastern region co-ordinator,
attended for the week to offer support, guidance
and technical advice to the referees officiating
and to also experience the Milk Cup himself.
The event is one of the world’s top youth
tournaments with over 50 teams from around
the world taking part. For the referees, it meant
an opportunity to work with different officials
and referee teams from all over the world.
This included delegations from the English
Premier League, Brazil, United States, Australia
and Spain, as well as county teams from
Northern Ireland. The games took place over
two age groups - Premier and Junior – with
venues based all around the Coleraine and
North West coastal region of Northern Ireland.
There were also officials from Scotland and the
Republic of Ireland, which again added to the
officials’ experience of working with colleagues
from around the UK.
Tournament Structure
Teams were separated into two age categories – Premier
for U17s teams and Junior for U15s teams.
Over the course of the five days, there were 115 games
– 55 in the Junior section and 60 in the Premier section.
The finals were held on the Friday 31 July 2015.
The FA RDG candidates officiated in 20 games – 13
as referee, six as assistant referees and one as fourth
official.
Premier games were set at 35 minutes each
way, while Junior matches were 30 minutes
each way.
Each ground had a match co-ordinator,
who helped the referees complete the
paperwork and return subs sheets after the
game. Fully completed match cards had to
be returned either during the day or at the
evening meeting.
Summary
The Milk Cup 2015 was a challenging
tournament where all the candidates
represented The FA, themselves and their
Regional Referee Development Groups with
professionalism, dedication and commitment.
This was an extremely well organised
tournament that ran like clockwork.
The Milk Cup Referees Committee must be
congratulated for their hard work and excellent
execution of events.
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