Mick
The Ref Aficionado.
Nothing to say about the history between the two clubs, other than that there is none.
The new arrangement for pooling referees in League One, League Two and the National League means that for the third match running we have a referee who last season was a Football League referee. The first two were good.
Saturday's referee is taking charge of his seventh Southend match. He is ginger-haired Alan Young from Ely, in his early to mid 40s and in his seventh season as a Football League referee. A former physical training instructor in the army he overcame a challenge or two in his earlier years and he became a respected and established non-league referee before joining the League list, where his fortunes have been rather mixed. An FA crony, he works as the Chief Executive Officer of the Bedfordshire FA at Milton Keynes having previously worked for the Cambridgeshire FA.
I had seen him referee in non-league a few times and he was always at least reasonable so I was not surprised he had a decent game in his first Southend home match, the 3-0 home win over Walsall 2018/19. Turner got our only yellow after replacing Lennon very early in the game. They, too, had one yellow. We also lost Hopper early on in that game. His other Southend match that season was the defeat at Peterborough. That finished 2-0, a match in which we had zero shots on target and, once again, one booking each: Dieng for us, and Ivan Toney for them.
His third Southend match was 2019/20, again against Peterborough, this time at home but another 2-0 defeat. Mantom getting the game’s only yellow card. Next came the riveting 0-0 at home to Tranmere back in January 2020. Demetriou got our solitary yellow card whereas they had 5. A poor match, refereed poorly.
Then came that lowest of low key matches, 2020/21’s away EFL Trophy match at Colchester. A 6-1 defeat with yellows for Hobson, White, Egbri and Chandler plus just one of theirs. Finally, his most recent match was the behind closed doors 2-0 home defeat by Carlisle, again in 2020/21. A yellow apiece, with ours going to Kyle Taylor.
It had all gone a bit wrong for him during 2019/20 and his previous high card count reached new levels as he became the first official to show 100 yellow cards and he had a few torrid matches.
Hid card showing has remained well above average in the years since he was last refereeing Southend. Last year’s efforts contained a match with 13 yellows and 2 reds. He has yet to have a cardless match in his 9 seasons of refereeing at National League or above – a record I’m sure he’s proud of.
Assisting will be Ryan Head from the Norwich area, returning just three and a half weeks after the Boston match, and Londoner, James Hurst making his 10th Roots Hall appearance, the most recent being against York this season. Fourth Official is Bradley Mingay, also from just outside Norwich.
The new arrangement for pooling referees in League One, League Two and the National League means that for the third match running we have a referee who last season was a Football League referee. The first two were good.
Saturday's referee is taking charge of his seventh Southend match. He is ginger-haired Alan Young from Ely, in his early to mid 40s and in his seventh season as a Football League referee. A former physical training instructor in the army he overcame a challenge or two in his earlier years and he became a respected and established non-league referee before joining the League list, where his fortunes have been rather mixed. An FA crony, he works as the Chief Executive Officer of the Bedfordshire FA at Milton Keynes having previously worked for the Cambridgeshire FA.
I had seen him referee in non-league a few times and he was always at least reasonable so I was not surprised he had a decent game in his first Southend home match, the 3-0 home win over Walsall 2018/19. Turner got our only yellow after replacing Lennon very early in the game. They, too, had one yellow. We also lost Hopper early on in that game. His other Southend match that season was the defeat at Peterborough. That finished 2-0, a match in which we had zero shots on target and, once again, one booking each: Dieng for us, and Ivan Toney for them.
His third Southend match was 2019/20, again against Peterborough, this time at home but another 2-0 defeat. Mantom getting the game’s only yellow card. Next came the riveting 0-0 at home to Tranmere back in January 2020. Demetriou got our solitary yellow card whereas they had 5. A poor match, refereed poorly.
Then came that lowest of low key matches, 2020/21’s away EFL Trophy match at Colchester. A 6-1 defeat with yellows for Hobson, White, Egbri and Chandler plus just one of theirs. Finally, his most recent match was the behind closed doors 2-0 home defeat by Carlisle, again in 2020/21. A yellow apiece, with ours going to Kyle Taylor.
It had all gone a bit wrong for him during 2019/20 and his previous high card count reached new levels as he became the first official to show 100 yellow cards and he had a few torrid matches.
Hid card showing has remained well above average in the years since he was last refereeing Southend. Last year’s efforts contained a match with 13 yellows and 2 reds. He has yet to have a cardless match in his 9 seasons of refereeing at National League or above – a record I’m sure he’s proud of.
Assisting will be Ryan Head from the Norwich area, returning just three and a half weeks after the Boston match, and Londoner, James Hurst making his 10th Roots Hall appearance, the most recent being against York this season. Fourth Official is Bradley Mingay, also from just outside Norwich.
