Mick
Life President
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2003
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- 10,952
Our first match against Wealdstone was an away fixture in the FA Cup in 1979 at their Lower Mead ground, where they had played since 1922. It’s now a Tesco car park. A 1-0 victory was achieved despite the presence of Stuart Pearce in the Wealdstone line-up, with our goal scored by John Walker (his only one for us) who I believe is a current season-ticket holder at Roots Hall. That match was refereed by Ron Challis who had refereed the Cup Final the year before.
The second and only other previous match against them was early this season at the somewhat compact Grosvenor Vale and was a disappointing 0-0 draw refereed by a man we can safely say will never get near a Cup Final unless he pays to go in.
Well it’s Good Friday – do we get a good referee? I would say yes, probably. Tomorrow’s referee has multiple and diverse sporting interests and, fittingly, comes from Rugby. He is Jacob Miles and should not be found wanting for fitness – he is a marathon runner and triathlete. Three years ago, he was from the Brighton area and working as a Referee Administrator for Sussex FA, amongst other things. More recently he was in the running for the Milton Keynes referee of the year award (and may have won it for all I know). He also umpires tennis at the highest level, having worked at 18 Grand Slams world-wide and last year at Wimbledon he was a Chair Umpire (equivalent to a middle in football).
This is his second season as a National League Referee and this season’s 16 matches have seen just 40 yellows and 2 reds and include the 7-4 Cup win for Halifax and Wealdstone’s 3-2 win at Dover. More relevantly, he took charge of our televised Friday night match at Grimsby when a very early goal condemned us to a 1-0 defeat - yellows for Egbri and Ferguson and one of theirs. I thought he did very well. More recently, he refereed our home match against Solihull with rather more bookings – three for them and also Husin and Atkinson. Again, a good performance from the man in the middle.
He was also an Assistant for our 2-0 defeat at Portsmouth back in 2018/19.
Assistants are Alex Bradley from Woodingdean, near Brighton and Marc Meeten from Worthing. The latter was Assistant for the home game against Bromley and Fourth Official again at home against Altrincham and the former assisted at Eastleigh. Making his Southend debut, Joseph Gray from Thurrock will be standing by as Fourth Official.
The second and only other previous match against them was early this season at the somewhat compact Grosvenor Vale and was a disappointing 0-0 draw refereed by a man we can safely say will never get near a Cup Final unless he pays to go in.
Well it’s Good Friday – do we get a good referee? I would say yes, probably. Tomorrow’s referee has multiple and diverse sporting interests and, fittingly, comes from Rugby. He is Jacob Miles and should not be found wanting for fitness – he is a marathon runner and triathlete. Three years ago, he was from the Brighton area and working as a Referee Administrator for Sussex FA, amongst other things. More recently he was in the running for the Milton Keynes referee of the year award (and may have won it for all I know). He also umpires tennis at the highest level, having worked at 18 Grand Slams world-wide and last year at Wimbledon he was a Chair Umpire (equivalent to a middle in football).
This is his second season as a National League Referee and this season’s 16 matches have seen just 40 yellows and 2 reds and include the 7-4 Cup win for Halifax and Wealdstone’s 3-2 win at Dover. More relevantly, he took charge of our televised Friday night match at Grimsby when a very early goal condemned us to a 1-0 defeat - yellows for Egbri and Ferguson and one of theirs. I thought he did very well. More recently, he refereed our home match against Solihull with rather more bookings – three for them and also Husin and Atkinson. Again, a good performance from the man in the middle.
He was also an Assistant for our 2-0 defeat at Portsmouth back in 2018/19.
Assistants are Alex Bradley from Woodingdean, near Brighton and Marc Meeten from Worthing. The latter was Assistant for the home game against Bromley and Fourth Official again at home against Altrincham and the former assisted at Eastleigh. Making his Southend debut, Joseph Gray from Thurrock will be standing by as Fourth Official.
