I was helping out at the Jobsite World Cup. This was a great little 5-a-side football tournament hosted by Jobsite at Fratton Park. It is really interesting to be at a premiership championship stadium on a non-match day and explore all the facilities! Not even the changing rooms were safe…
Although I was originally present as an assistant and to take some wonderful photographs I did get roped in to play for the Jobsite ‘B’ team. This mostly consisted of people that don’t really play football in any seriousness. Hey, I like to think I am a pretty hot referee but my first (and second…third…) touch is shocking. Predictably we got thrashed but I did set up the most amazing goal… honest, I really did.
There was some great skill (and importantly, sportsmanship!) on display. Matchtech won through in the end representing Cameroon so many congratulations to them!
Now to continue to work towards my own footballing goal: To be refereeing at stadiums like this in high profile games in the future! It’s certainly not going to be an easy journey but then what fun would it be if not challenging?
The season is now over so my main focus at the moment is preserving fitness (including sprinting speed and agility to avoid evil Achilles problems). There may well be a shift in focus from football to judo for a bit as a result of this training…