Mick
Life President
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2003
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We have had the better of both League and Cup matches against Dagenham over the years and league-wise we tend to do pretty well in away matches.
Saturday’s non-televised match is due to be refereed by Matthew Russell from Waterlooville, who is starting his fifth season at this level. He ended last season early when he pulled out of our home match against Chesterfield at the beginning of March and didn't do another match. This will be his first match of the season. He qualified as a referee in 2010, originally hoping to do this alongside playing. It didn’t take him long to realise that he could progress much higher up the football pyramid through refereeing than he would be able to achieve with his footballing ability, so he made the switch to focus solely on refereeing.
Last season he had the lowest average card count of all National League referees having shown just 20 yellows and 1 red in a dozen matches.
Co-incidentally, one of those matches was our televised away match at Dagenham ten months ago. He had a decent match and the only card of the game was a yellow to Myles Weston.
His other previous Southend match was our 0-0 draw at Wealdstone the season before last. Four of the six yellows went to us – Arnold, White, Ralph and Ferguson. I think it was generally accepted that he made very hard work of refereeing a straightforward game and, like the match, really wasn’t very good. He was appointed to two further matches at Roots Hall that season, Barnet and Grimsby, but both were postponed.
His last Dagenham match was their away win at Maidstone at the very beginning of this year.
Assisting will be Robert Evans from Northampton who lined in both of the last two seasons' games at Bromley and refereed our FA Youth Cup tie at Barton Rovers 8 years ago and Thomas Cooke, not a travel agent but works in private healthcare. He is also from Northampton and a marathon runner. He was a sports scientist at Northampton Town for a short while. Fourth Official is Gary Cornell from Stevenage with his first Southend appointment.
Saturday’s non-televised match is due to be refereed by Matthew Russell from Waterlooville, who is starting his fifth season at this level. He ended last season early when he pulled out of our home match against Chesterfield at the beginning of March and didn't do another match. This will be his first match of the season. He qualified as a referee in 2010, originally hoping to do this alongside playing. It didn’t take him long to realise that he could progress much higher up the football pyramid through refereeing than he would be able to achieve with his footballing ability, so he made the switch to focus solely on refereeing.
Last season he had the lowest average card count of all National League referees having shown just 20 yellows and 1 red in a dozen matches.
Co-incidentally, one of those matches was our televised away match at Dagenham ten months ago. He had a decent match and the only card of the game was a yellow to Myles Weston.
His other previous Southend match was our 0-0 draw at Wealdstone the season before last. Four of the six yellows went to us – Arnold, White, Ralph and Ferguson. I think it was generally accepted that he made very hard work of refereeing a straightforward game and, like the match, really wasn’t very good. He was appointed to two further matches at Roots Hall that season, Barnet and Grimsby, but both were postponed.
His last Dagenham match was their away win at Maidstone at the very beginning of this year.
Assisting will be Robert Evans from Northampton who lined in both of the last two seasons' games at Bromley and refereed our FA Youth Cup tie at Barton Rovers 8 years ago and Thomas Cooke, not a travel agent but works in private healthcare. He is also from Northampton and a marathon runner. He was a sports scientist at Northampton Town for a short while. Fourth Official is Gary Cornell from Stevenage with his first Southend appointment.
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