 after that everybody will make a stop first of all, thanks for joining us today, something a little bit different and really exciting for you that are joining us. So really pleased that we're joined by Rebecca from the Premier League, so Rebecca just give us a little wave of hello. Fe wnaeth yr oedd yn gwneud o weithio ar y cyfnod eich gwasanaeth yn antyni Taelor, yn y cyffredinedd Cymru. Mae'r ffordd arall, rydyn ni'n gwybod i'n gweithio. Mae'r ffordd o'r gwaith eich cyfnod ar ôl i'r pwg yn gweithio. Mae'r pwg mewn ei fod yn gweithio, yng Nghymru, yng Nghymru, gallwn lleol gweithio cyllideb a mewn rhai o'r ffordd am hyn, a os gallwn i'r gweithio cywethaf, os gallwn i'r gweithio ar oha'r gweithio ymddangos o brydodau, a'r cwrdd faniaeth. Mae'n mynd i'n dda chi ar ddim yn ymddangos i'r gwrth nesaf, a'r ddod i'n siarad o'r mwyfyddach ei hoffi, dwi'n gweithio a bod yn ei gweithio i fynd i i gwaith hyn? Mae'n gweithio i'r llwyddo i'r botwch fel angen, As Anthony's going through, if there's anything that you might want to ask or clarification or anything, put it in there and Steve and Luke can manage that if that's okay. Is that all right, Anthony? Over to you. Great stuff, thanks Mark. Let's share my screen. Okay. Is that coming up okay? Yep. Perfect. Okay, good afternoon everybody then. Great to see you all. I hope you're all keeping well. And as Andrew said, feel free as we go through this presentation to chip in with the questions and we'll answer them as we go along. But really the aim of today is I want to show all of you that being a professional ref is an option, an alternative route in the game. Compared to playing or coaching or anything of such like. And let's remember, we're not just talking about officiating in men's professional football. There's a wide, diverse range now of games. But the only room for learning to do is to show it. It's quite a lot to show it. It's not a professional ref. It is very much a vibrant career. Compared to what it was 25 years ago when I first started. And just like a player, it takes hard work and commitment to reach the very, very top. And how you bounce back from disappointment is usually the way that we learn, we get better and we strive to get better. And obviously the ultimate rewards for a top elite football or an elite referee is to being involved in only the high profile matches both here and abroad, international tournaments. And of course, like most of you, I presume when I was at school, when I had hair. I didn't have the courage to put the picture on with me curtains on. But I'm sure Steve was probably about the same in a few years before that as well. You know, my ambition when I was at school when I was still playing football was was to play in an FA Cup final, like most people who play football these days. And you're probably wondering what this picture is on the screen, but everyone has a dream of playing so this is my hometown team. The Ultraman who I support, not particularly a successful team in terms of professional game, but one of the most successful teams at giant killing teams in the history of the FA Cup. And this is the team in 1995 that had just missed out on promotion to the Football League when I was starting to go and watch games. And it's really down to going watching these games that I actually got involved in refereeing. I didn't want to be a referee when I was at school. I was an average player. I was a really good defender actually because I never played the ball and I never made sure anybody got past me. But every weekend I would spend time going to watch Ultraman play home and away in what was then the Voxel conference. And it came to a point where the mother was sick and tired of me coming home every weekend complaining about the referees costing us the game and costing us the point. And that was the reason why we weren't being promoted and we weren't running games. And so really my mum set me a challenge. She either told me to go and try the ref's course or shut up basically. And that was back in 1995. Now, the majority of the games that I first started doing were in both the Ultraman Sunday League and the Winninshire Sunday League. And these were basically pub teams. Pub teams full of 18 plus year old. Usually also some of the better teams had players playing from the semi-professional game. This was before player contracts came into being in the semi-professional level. So, as you see there, that picture of Winninshire Park, that could host 25 matches on a Sunday morning. 25 pitches side by side. And some of the better games they had two, three hundred people stood around those pitches watching. So you can imagine how many people were actually there at half past ten on a Sunday morning. It was absolute carnage sometimes. You couldn't tell where one pitch started and one pitch finished. But these were happy memories for me. And these are the games that actually helped me develop my skillset from a very, very early age. Because just like when you go and get a job for the first time, a young person can be quite intimidating and nervous about interacting with older people. And so we should never underestimate the importance of how we communicate with people. And how we can learn to deal with different situations, whether that be having positive conversations with people or dealing with conflict, as you would do in particularly a Sunday morning game. So 1995 was a real, it was an eye opener for me first of all. But it really toughened me up from the very, very start. And it's only after these initial games that I really started getting the bug for being involved. I was realistic, like I said, I was no fantastic player. I was a Sunday league player tops. And so actually having the chance of potentially refereeing was a great way of staying involved in football, but maybe also reaching the higher levels. And 1995 was actually only a couple of years after the actual Premier League was formed as well. So at that time being a professional referee wasn't even an option. Because that only came a few years later further down the line when more money was invested in the officials. But the initial impression of people who officiate games is, well, I probably haven't got any friends and I certainly don't have any hair. And not many people like refs, but nothing could be really further from the truth. Because believe it or not, if you're actually going about your job showing that you're putting the effort in, showing you're working hard and showing that you're just trying to help and make the game more enjoyable for everybody, even players at grass roots level really, really appreciate that. And so even if you go away from this talk today and you still don't think that you've fancied trying being a ref, actually go away and start thinking about how you actually deal with people and what kind of perception people have of you. And never underestimate that because that's also important in everything that we do in life, people's perception. So always think about ways of creating positive, how you can create a positive perception about yourself, when other people are looking at how you're going about things. So then from the, just giving you an idea, it can take a good number of years to progress through the system. So from starting on the Sunday leagues all the way through to the Premier League, it took me best part of 15 seasons and that's not an unusual occurrence. That's about the average time it can take to go all the way through because we have so many different steps to go through. So a few memorable places for me, so the bottom left is Rossendale United, which is where I refereed my first Northern Premier League game in 2001. Top left is Southport where I refereed my first national conference game. And top right is Wrexham, which is where I refereed my first football league game. And bottom right is where I refereed my first Premier League game full on ports within 2010. And I always like to look at this because it's nice to remember your roots and remember the progress that you took because anything that we do in life, any success, you're only judged on your last game, particularly in football. Same can be said for players, managers, coaches and equally for referees. You're only as good as your last game. Nobody remembers the great game you played or refereed five years ago or even three weeks ago. Everybody just remembers that last, poor decision that you made. And actually, when you actually have reached the top level and you look back at some of the places that you did go to as part of the early stage of your career, it makes it all worthwhile. And only a couple of weeks after refereeing that match at Rossendale, which is obviously not a very warm place to be even in the middle of summer, as you can tell by the hills. My third or fourth match was at Accrington Stanley, who obviously now a football league team. The ground is barely different to what it was in 2001. And John Coleman was still the manager all the way back then. And so, you know, that's a contrasting positive story about somebody working hard and focusing on achievement, where a particular individual has been a manager at a club for a number of years and progressed all the way through from Northern Premier League all the way through to the professional game. So that is generally the route you're taking. And obviously, different parts of the country, the middle bit differs slightly, because the football pyramid is slightly different now. So the Northern Premier League will be equivalent to what the old Southern Ismian league is down New York. But again, leagues have been rejigged all the time. Every single level, this gives us an opportunity to learn new skills. So like I said, usually the same always applies to players as well. If you're working your way through different levels of the game. Styles of player different. The quality of pitch is different for sure. The quality of the facilities are different. The size of the crowds steadily increases you well now. And obviously, the biggest challenges as you move to the higher levels is the level of scrutiny from the media. And you've only been early in, yes, Mike? Just done that before you go on. So there was a question from Ryan, what you sent in, that probably links to that, was just what kept you, well it's two parts really, what kept you motivated to continue referee and like you say, under some of the scrutiny that you got probably coming through your journey. And then also just in terms of the steps that you had to take in terms of your training in between all the different levels. OK. So in terms of the scrutiny, in this country we have a system where clubs get the opportunity to feed back on referees performances for every game, which is obviously a really, really important time for people to reflect and learn from. But that feedback is not always objective. So for example, if a penalty is given in the last minute and even if it's a correct penalty, that kind of feedback would not always be positive. You kind of learn as you're coming through. You almost, well I think the best way of approaching it is you're trying to help educate people about why you are doing things, but also about the laws of the game. One of the biggest frustrations for us when we go to any match at any level is a lot of arguments that people have about a decision being right or wrong. It's always flawed because it's never using the up-to-date version of the laws of the game. And I'm not saying we need to be sat there like real saddles and be quoting the rules of football like in black and white. But you know, I think a recent example, a few months ago I was at a National League North game doing some coaching with a younger ref. And a club official was having a discussion with me using the offside law from 15 years ago. And he still thought that was in current practice. So that's coming through with the scrutiny. People will be very willing to criticise you without really understanding what they're saying, which can be very frustrating. But that's an opportunity for us to try and educate. In terms of training, obviously, I'll touch on training very shortly. But the biggest challenge when you are coming through the system, and very much again like players would experience, certainly Northern Premier League, everybody, you have a full-time job. And even when I was a football league referee, so up to 2009 before I got on to the Premier League, I had a full-time job. So I was on shift work as a prison officer. So you know, some days I would be starting to shift at six o'clock in the morning, finishing at one, driving to London to referee and matching the evening, driving straight home and then back on shift again at six o'clock. And that's a continual cycle. And that is what a lot of match officials still do. A lot of football league referees still do that. A lot of female officials still have to do that. So there's some real challenges. The easiest comparison to make is like Olympic athletes. Olympic athletes have to work to raise their own funds to train to get to the Olympic Games. So it's very much along those lines. OK. So again, once you reach different levels, you never really become aware of some of the opportunities that are available to you until you actually reach that level. So when I first became a football league referee in 2006, I never really thought, oh, I could be a Premier League referee in a couple of years. And when I became a Premier League referee in 2010, I didn't really think, oh, I could be a FIFA referee in a couple of years. But I was lucky enough to get onto the international panel in 2013. And that in itself presents lots and lots of different opportunities, but equally challenges. So first and foremost, you want to do the very best games being being the main referee on the field. But in recent years, we've also had the opportunity to be involved in some of the best games with acting as the additional rest behind the goal. And obviously some lads are now branching out into the AR side of it as well in the tournament. But my first game abroad, as you see on the bottom left of the screen, that was in the Champions League qualifying in Beretti Slava. And I couldn't find a picture of the actual game, but when this game was taking place, that stadium was full and you couldn't really see from one side of the pitch because there was that much smoke from fireworks. Which is something we don't experience in this country. So different culture, you haven't to learn with different cultures, different ways of different interpretations of the rules and different styles of play. So lots and lots of different things to learn and consider. Obviously the other three pitches across the top are, like I say, some of the situations I've been fortunate enough to be involved in a few years ago were Europa League Champions League and Euro finals four or five years ago. And then obviously at the moment, myself and my current team, we're working towards what we'd hope to have been involved in the Euros that we started last week. But that decision was obviously delayed because of coronavirus. So again, that's all in the mix now. So my team, we're working towards trying to be selective for the next two tournaments, the Euros and the World Cup. But the international opportunities have had a hugely enjoyable dimension to officiating. So again, for anyone who thinks that elite refereeing has never really been an entertaining or viable option, these kind of opportunities are not to be sniffed out of you if you're prepared to work hard and aim towards the top end of what you can achieve. Anything, any questions before we just give you a flavour of what it's like involved, what it's like at the top level? I think just one from my perspective, Anthony. How do you get along with language barriers when you do international work? OK, so why is Rebecca smiling? We're really lucky that English is generally the main language within international football. So most people you will come across will speak English. I can speak some very, very small amount of French, German and Spanish words, but literally words to get my point. But a lot of focus and preparation goes into not just not about the words, but about body language and the importance. It goes back to what I was saying before about how we communicate with people, the importance of eye contact and your gestures and your demean, how you convey messages to players abroad far more effectively than trying to speak a couple of words of their own language. OK, so just that was my very short version of my rise to the top. And I just wanted to spend a couple of minutes just giving you a couple of key areas of give you a flavour of what it's absolutely like to officiate at the top level and to give you a flavour. So in terms of the scrutiny we are under these days is most people are interested and obsessed with the level of accuracy, particularly in terms of major decisions around penalty areas and sending off and things like this. We have this system which absolutely analyses every single decision you make during the course of the game, so that doesn't just mean when you blow your whistle, it means every time you have to make a judgement. So it's a very in depth analysis, so as you can see I put a snapshot of the system from a game earlier in the season and what you can see. You look at the screen, but I actually failed to detect that Man United should have been given a penalty in the Derby earlier this season, so you can see where it's graded as incorrect in red. Yeah. And I have to provide my own analysis of why I think the decision may be wrong. And then it shows the process of VAR being involved and getting the correct decision and the play being cautioned for the challenge which resulted in the penalty, but this is done for every single decision in the game. So for throwing any potential physical contact where judgments have to be made. So on average, in a Premier League game, referees make 245 decisions on average. That equates to making a judgement roughly every 22 seconds. And of those judgments, we split them down to around 200 physical offences, potential physical offences. And about 165 times out of that 200, you'll just allow play to continue, i.e. you'll decide there's nothing happening. So everything's graded, and they like to produce an overall total accuracy for the decision making in the course of the game. Now we also have another system as some of the guys from the club might know. We also have a delegate system where we have ex-players and ex-managers who watch the game from a player's perspective as well. And they also provide a separate report and a separate analysis of performance. So we have a technical analysis like the one I've just shown you. And then we have a more holistic analysis from the game's perspective to almost analysing the perception that we create, how we manage the game, how we deal with players and how the person watching actually thinks we've judged particular situations. So that obviously then also leads to decision making under pressure. So it's very difficult to describe to people what this is actually like. It's also very difficult to recreate in a training setting. So where a pilot might have a simulator, while I'm doing training in the week, I can't physically recreate being stood in front of 80,000 people and trying to decide whether someone's dived or not, or has committed a handball offence or not, or has deserved to be sent off. And so a lot of other work goes into working on your judgement and your ability to analyse situations in a split second. So we use quite a lot of simulated stuff digitally, clips, different angles, things like this. And obviously it's impossible to get everything right 100% of the time, physically impossible. But what we try and work hard to do is to try and limit the times that we get things wrong, particularly in the important areas. And there's a lot of things that come together. So the picture that I've put on this slide here is probably the decision I'm most proud of in terms of getting correct in a high pressure situation. So this is the FA Cup final, which I'll just talk about shortly. But Victor Moses, who'd already been cautioned, he died to try and win a penalty. So I had to decide whether one, whether we dived and two, whether we should be sent off. Which, thankfully, the judgement was correct. But a lot of the things that underpin the decision were in terms of the basics that we work on on a daily basis in training. So your movement around the field, reading the game, reading how that situation develops into the penalty area. So you can actually move into a position to make the correct judgement. Because if you're not in the correct position, you're either blocked by a player, you don't quite get the angle. And this is where, for people who currently play, this is where you could benefit if you chose to go down a referee and move to a later date. Because you have a good understanding of the game. And that understanding will help you read certain situations a little bit better than not. And there's not many examples of ex-players taking up the whistle. We used to have a footbally referee called Steve Baines in the early 2000, late 1990s. But there's not many other examples. But actually becoming involved in refereeing and learning a little bit more of the intricacies of the law. One helps your understanding of the game more as a player. But equally, player going into refereeing will help, your reading of the game will help with decision making sometimes as well. And the last area to give you an idea of is about fitness. So we touched on it before. So just a few stats over the last five years, the speed of a Premier League match has increased by, I think it's actually over 20%. But 20% is a ballpark figure. So if you can actually imagine how that equates or impacts on not only on match day, but how you have to prepare for that. So a couple of stats there from my own personal stats from last season, 18, 19. So my average total distance was nearly two kilometres more than the average player in a game. And the top speed for sprinting during a game is similar to a player, just a touch less than a top player as well. And the two examples there that I've put there, my heart rate traces there, two sessions I've been doing in the last couple of weeks to prepare for tomorrow night's restart. So these are sessions that we do to try and replicate match scenario, so match situations. So the sessions are about an hour long. But the crucial thing here is, as you can see the heart rate data. So zone four is your high intensity zone. So that's probably about twice or three times the amount of high intensity running that some matches will put you under. So we always try and aim to train greater intensity when we come to the match, the physical intensity doesn't challenge us. And then all your focus and your energies can actually go into reading the game and moving into position and making the correct decisions. So I started by saying that everybody who plays football always dreams of officiating the FA Cup final. So 2017 I was very fortunate enough to do that. And in a refereeing sense, you only get to referee this match once in your whole career. So where players might get to playing it two, three, four, five times, we only get to appear once in this in this match. So, you know, I started by saying that I wanted to try and show you if this being a different option that is open to you as opposed to playing or coaching. OK. And as I said before, as a player, if you work hard and you train hard, then you get to play in the best games. You win medals, you win trophies, you win records as players scoring goals. From an officiating perspective, you could apply the same mentality and the same work ethic, and you can still achieve lots within the game and still be involved in the game to a really high level. At the end of the day, it's the best seat in the house apart from playing. So that's my brief snapshot. I hope it's not too brief for you, but if you've got any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. I'm just going to come off sharing my screen. Andrew, you'll have to tell me if people are wanting to ask or anything. I can come in there, Andy, if you like. Yeah, Andy, really fascinating. Thanks for that. It's really, really good to see the journey. One thing that I think would be really good for everybody on the court to understand is that stage where you came from having two jobs in effect, being a prison officer and officiating and then going to full-time. What does a full-time week look like for you as a referee? Is there fitness every day? Is there a bit of practice in terms of making decisions every day? Or what does the week look like? It's difficult to give you a standard week because it will vary so much in terms of... Have I got commitments for UEFA or FIFA? Forget that for a minute. A normal week between a weekend and a weekend with Premier League matches, it will mainly be four of the five days fitness training-wise. You'll spend time reviewing your match from... You'll have to go through the whole game on the analysis system and reviewing stuff with the rest of the team. And then equally, we also have training camps as well. Every fort now we use St George's Park as our training base usually. A bog standard week would be very much orientated on training and just analysing the game. If you throw into the international game with it, most Champions League and Europa League games take three or four days out of the week. You know when they have a day, depending on where you are, you know when they have a day or two before the match and you fly back the day after. If you were lucky enough to go to Russia a couple of times, then it could take out the most of your week just travel-wise. Brilliant, thanks for that. You also mentioned the team that you work with. How does that work as well? Do you spend some time as a team going through the game together? I know you say you meet up as well, but do you get that period of reflection time together and how you might change or adapt anything? Yeah, so in an ideal scenario, you've worked with the same two assistants all the time. Now that's not always possible. So usually the two most fortunate refs are myself and Michael Oliver. And we tend to get to work with the same two assistants all the time because they're the lads who work abroad with us as well. And so when you're working together as a settled team, it's much, much easier to analyse your game between the three of you. But obviously, we'll use different methods just like you guys will do with players. So if one of our coaches is at the match, we then have a conference call later in the week to analyse particular situations and stuff. And we're really, believe it or not, we're probably the most really critical of what you can do because you can get to listen back to the audio as well because with VAR everything's recorded, you see. So it's a really good training tool to actually listen back to why you made a decision. And if you're making a wrong decision, I remember I gave a... I missed a penalty top in Chelsea before Christmas and I gave a foul on the goalkeeper and I'm still at a loss how I did. But then once I sat down and listened to the audio from the game, then I understood why I made the mistake because you can actually hear what you're talking about as it's going on. So I'm out of position, I've got the wrong angle, I've misjudged it all, but all that's really useful to learn from the mistake and not try not to do it again. Excellent, thank you. We've got a lot of young people on the Zoom call with us this afternoon. We're just interested about the support. Obviously, the support you get now and the time you get to allow that to happen for you to perform what your best come match day is really there. What was it like as an early referee? Did you have a mentor? Did the county FA play a role in that in supporting you as a younger referee coming into the game for the first time? I think sometimes the most important thing to remember as young people is that you should... I know it's easier said than done and I'll sound like a parent here because my girls always tell me after saying this. But you should always try and be the very best that you can be at whatever you do. And I know that's a pain in the backside sometimes for you to do that. But particularly in my younger days we did have some form of mentoring but there's a lot more support available now than there ever has been. And so if someone's encouraging you to try and develop and be the best you can make the most of the help that's on offer make the most of the support that's on offer because sometimes things will... things will be difficult and you will need help with things. But it's so, so important to try and take advantage of the help that's there but always, always try and do the best or always try and be the very best that you can be. Absolutely great advice. We've got a few questions coming in some really good ones so we'll get onto the VAR questions at some of them in a minute. It says, Morgan's put your referee in the City Arsenal game tomorrow. We're looking forward to football coming back. What's your routine between now and the game starting? What path will you take? OK, right. So Morgan just before, literally just before I came on this call with you guys I've gone out and done my final training session. Just only a 30-minute life sprinting session. So whenever you're working towards again your training kind of tapers off a little bit the last two or three days before the game. Other than that, I'll spend a little bit more time tonight looking at the players that are most likely to be playing tomorrow. So there's different ways of looking at your preparation. A lot of people focus on the actual team tactics which is obviously important for me in terms of formations and styles of play because that obviously has a massive impact on where I stand or run to. But more and more now, it's important to get to know the personalities of the players that are involved in the game because they're the ones that you've got to try and deal with before they start causing a problem in the game. So I've refereed City Arsenal many times so I know quite a few players. Now, thankfully, hopefully, a lot of the players know me and the way I approach things as well. So I'd like to think that potential problems are slightly limited based on everybody's knowledge of each other. But the last 24, 48 hours will really focus on potential problems coming from players and then also just refreshing their memory about the expectations. So the Premier League and our organisation, the PDMO, are very clear in what they expect to be given for as a penalty or what they expect as a red card or when they expect the AR to become involved. And we've had 100 days of no-life football. So you need to get back into the groove to make sure that you're on up to speed and that people expect you to do. Great stuff. I've got a couple of similar questions coming in from... because we know young people on the Zoom call have started their refereeing journey and I think this is linked to this a little bit. It's coming from India and from Mia. It's how you deal with discipline of players, particularly when they get a little bit more aggressive and in your face as such. As a referee, how did you come to terms with that and how did you deal with that? OK, so I think I mentioned it earlier. The most powerful tool in your armory when you're trying to deal with somebody who's aggressive is your eye contact. OK? So certainly not saying that you should be staring them out because that all have the totally opposite effect. It's particularly someone's feeling aggressive towards you. But eye contact is a really powerful way of getting your message across. And following that up with your body language as well. So it's no good being in somebody's face, waving your arms, pointing your fingers and all this kind of stuff because all that's going to do is just wind that other person up more and more and more and more. And so the best rule to try and follow is really to try and engage that person in how you'd like to be spoken to. If you're remaining calm and you're speaking calmly and slowly to them, that will actually have the effect of bringing them down a little bit and creating that little bit of distance. Of course you'll have to create a bit of distance anyway now through social distancing, but even just creating that little bit of distance between us all contributes to calming people's emotions down rather than being in somebody's face pointing your finger which is only going to have one meal and not the result that you want. Again, we've got a couple of double up questions here. So from Chris and Adam and obviously VAR is that toku conversation we have around football. But how has that changed your outlook of refereeing? How has that impacted on you as a referee? And the follow up question to that as well was is the Premier League better for VAR? How has it really changed my outlook on refereeing? Because at the end of the day, VAR is there to help you get more decisions correct. But the bottom line that we always work to is that if you work hard to get the decision right in the first place, the less you will need to rely on VAR to mail you out. I think the jury is still out for many people about whether VAR has had a positive impact. But again, that's a frustrating part of it because this season has shown this. 12 months ago everybody was crying out for technology to come in. By Christmas, there was something like 12 goals have been disallowed for offside, for example. Correctly, because somebody's big toe was close to the goal and then it should have been. But unfortunately under the law, that is offside. And 12 months ago before we had VAR, those things were getting flagged up and media pundits and managers were kicking off saying well we need VAR because that's offside and we need to help the official all of a sudden. And this was born out of the game that I did where we had a goal that was disallowed for offside correctly. And a player and a manager said to me well we don't want correct decisions anymore. We just don't want VAR. So, you know, it's had a positive effect in terms of more decisions are actually technically correct. But it's flipped people's mindsets a little bit. They don't like the disruption to the game. They don't like the waiting around. They've stopped short from saying well we actually want to go back to what we used to have and have things wrong and people complaining all the time. But you've got to be careful what you wish for. And in fact I think some of the more recent suggestions as well and this is what I mean by people in the media needing to make sure they know what they're saying. I heard one suggestion how to improve VAR for the referees to go across to the screen. Which is fine, but at the moment we only use those in certain scenarios because the 20 clubs in the Premier League determine how we use that system. But the improvement was this media pundit had said well we don't need anybody at Stockley Park in London watching the video. We need the ref at the side of the pitch. But it's the guy in Stockley Park who sends the picture to the side of the pitch in the first place. So if you just want the ref going to the screen then you'll be looking at a black screen because there's nobody there to blank screen instead of any pitches on there. So people need to be careful how they say things because there's a lot of factual inaccuracies still out there. Great stuff, thank you. Another one from Chris is are you like the teams? Do you get a fixture list? Do you get a list of games that you know you're coming up or is it you referee one game and you get told the next one? Do you get that long fixture list? Do you know what you're doing over the next six weeks? So everything we do is performance based so our appointments tend to come out on a Monday afternoon for the next seven days. So we only get a game week by week basis. So even for these next nine games in fact we literally got an email at lunchtime to say what we're doing for next weekend. So it's only a week by week basis because basically if you're not performing you don't get appointments, simple as. And the same principle for UEFA so Champions League and Europa League you basically one game you perform well you're in the hat for another game if you don't perform well you'll sit out two rounds of games so it's very... people say we're not accountable I can't believe who we are. We've got again a couple of repeat questions coming in around your best game that you've refereed, your favourite game I know you've mentioned the Cup final but also what's the toughest game so is there particular games at the top ends where you think that's a really memorable game for you and one that maybe was a tough game for you? It's difficult though to say in fact it's unfair to say just the games at the top are difficult because if you actually think about it your Man City, Liverpool's City Arsenal, Tottenham Arsenal even though there's some great rivalry the style of their play limits the amount of physical contact between players because they both counterattack at such speed there's not a lot of tackles going in which plays breaking down and constantly flipping back and forth so if you compare that to a team who let's go back a few years so for example Stoke City when they were in the Premier League they were not renowned for playing free-flowing counter-attacking football they had very definitive tactics which played to the strengths in their team so sometimes the more difficult games are when styles of that of Stoke come up against free-flowing teams and one of the most difficult matches I've done, I did it three consecutive seasons Stoke against Chelsea and Stoke were their target was Diego Costa and they just wanted to wind Diego Costa up and you can imagine what his reaction is like even if he's not been fouled he's been fouled so it's the contrasting styles that can make games really, really difficult sometimes I think the bigger games where you've got a lot of counter-attacking football and that's just me running box to box to box to box all the time with the odd decision to make usually an important decision that's more of a matter of mental focus and concentration whereas the contrasting styles that play a long ball against free-flowing or breaking up the game that requires 100% concentration focus all the time because you're probably giving about 40 free kicks in that game whereas in Arsenal City you probably give about 15 Excellent, thank you and everyone that's come in here is interested in one as well around maybe teams that you're not allowed to referee by where you might live or the team you might be a supporter of is there any restrictions around that? There are restrictions around that so basically at the start of the season you have to declare what team you support members of your family that whole season tickets all that kind of stuff so distance wise where I live in Ultraman which has come under Cheshire FA there's no Premier League team under Cheshire FA and although I'm quite close to City, United Liverpool there's no restriction on me refereeing those teams because I don't support any of those teams Excellent, just checking through any more questions here I know that Andy's got some that were sent in previously before we all joined the court If I just come in while Steve has a look at some other ones it kind of links to something that someone sent in before do you still get nervous at all prior to a game? Not really, a little bit I suppose it's good in a way to have some kind of nerves but any nerves in a good way in terms of wanting to perform well I certainly don't usually experience any nerves in terms of what's at stake on a game or anything like that because I firmly believe that if you've prepared properly and your mind's in the right place before you arrive at the ground then you'll just get the butterflies more from an emotional kick point of view rather than anything else and then just another one, just touching on obviously at the minute we're all coming out gradually from our Covid restrictions and so on I know you've been doing I know your dog's probably been walked a lot and I know you've been doing some volunteer in yourself along with your training can you just touch on that, how that's impacted? The volunteering aspect was pure because my sister being a doctor on the front line so I just felt that anybody who was fit and healthy and had the time then it's the least people could do to help out so some of the stuff I've been involved in has been delivering so some families who were entitled to free school meals at the local colleges were delivering food parcels to them food parcels to some of the old people we actually had a shop in the town who collected a load of old bed-indue, very cool as pillar cases and one of the antique shops in the town started turning them into screw bags for the hospital workers so it's nice to see that a lot of people have come together to help each other but then it's also it's shown really everybody should really take care from it that you know looking out for each other and staying positive can work wonders in many many different ways so even moving forward out of lockdown for everybody on this call it's really important to maintain that positive focus and that positive outlook because you can achieve so much when you put your mind to it Andy, this is I've got number one here for Anthony coming from Morgan a really good one, there's obviously the games that are starting out now being played behind closed doors have you ever read a game at the top ends behind closed doors before? Yeah so it was my last game before lockdown actually I did Paris PSG against Dortmund in the Champions League behind closed doors so then I've done a couple of other international games in previous seasons the one in Paris well it will be slightly different to the Premier League games because there was over 5,000 people still outside the stadium in Paris so it wasn't particularly well-placed outside but it presents different challenges to players and referees so whilst the atmosphere in the stadium will be the same depending on what's at stake at the game so if there's relegation or Champions League spot at stake the game will just have the same pace and intensity I suspect as normal it's if we get to the last couple of weeks of the season where there's not a lot to see to play for the teams and then we might see some games maybe slowing up a little bit and not being as exciting to watch and we were talking just before coming on to the call all the different rules and regulations so as a referee if you had to have a good read-up of all the different rules and regulations that are coming in in terms of players behaviour and what playing behind closed doors means well I mean in terms of the behaviour there's no specific stuff in terms of the behaviour so everybody's just been encouraged to try and socially distance where it's possible it'll be interesting to see how things are because obviously a lot of team tactics a lot of the time is managers arguing with the fourth official or players trying to persuade referees getting into it now that's not going to be allowed to happen because they've clearly been told do not go anywhere near people so it'll be interesting to see the shifting team tactics but there's a lot of there's a lot of protocols in place I mean you know all of us have had to go through the numerous amounts of testing and there's a very very small number of people that are actually allowed in the stadium even a smaller number of people out pitch side so put it into contest some clubs have support and back room staff of 30-40 people sometimes and they've only allowed four people so you know it's even from the back room side of things no massages for players after games all this kind of stuff so big changes I've got another one coming here from Matt a lot of young people targeting a career within football what advice would you give on dealing with some of the negative comments towards your performance don't read them, simple as I don't read any newspapers I don't watch the analysis on max of the day I don't have any social media at all just don't read them and the only reason someone's having a go at you because you're better than them in the first place Andy, back to you, have you got any more that was sent in previously? Yeah I think we've probably covered covered all of them really I think if anyone's got any final questions just put them in the chat and Steve and Luke can manage that but I think just from our perspective and all you guys on the call really there's some really good life lessons that Anthony talked through just about being the best that you can whether it's refereeing coaching, whether it's in your studies academically it's just being the best you can so some really good life lessons that you can probably take from that and so you got anything just to sum it up really? Yeah it's just really just to reiterate what I said before to all of you being young can be difficult at times now really really difficult and you've all probably experienced circumstances in recent months that no other kids have for years to come might experience and so it's so so important that you take advantage of any of the help that's on offer to you if you need help ask somebody for help but more importantly always always keep working towards being the really really the best you can be and always keep working towards your dreams and your goals Thanks Andy we've just got another one coming so again Anthony if I can ask you this one it's a really interesting one just to round things up and what's your plans when you stop refereeing what's the plans for the future? I know you're not there yet we've got quite a few years to go but what would be the plans in the future? Again a little bit like players so I did I finished a master's degree last year in sport coaching and I do a bit of work in terms of development work for the FA in the lower leagues with match officials and I also like I do enjoy doing some talks to various companies at conferences in terms of leadership and stuff like that so maybe something along those lines but you know the moment my immediate focus is for the next four years before I have to retire off the international list so targets the Euros and the next World Cup but again that's a very small chance to get selected for those so it's really important we work really hard There's just one that's just come in here a couple actually around Covid and the current situation we're in and obviously we're all out there when we're reading about all the testing that's going on for the players and the temperature test every day has that been similar for yourself as officials? Yeah so it's exactly the same so the Premier League have employed a private company to do all the testing so tested in roughly every five days at the moment and then tested on the morning of every game that you do and we've got to do temperature checks every day at home as well submit those and medical questions there so it's there's some real scrutiny and safeguards in place in terms of anybody's experience but it's a blanket approach to anybody who's going to be involved on the field but it's really important that people understand it's not it's not taking away capacity for healthcare workers who need that it's a specific company that the Premier League have employed to do all this so Thank you Andy I think that's got most of the questions off of the chat box so it's back to you again Yeah I think that's all wrapped up so just to say Auntie and Rebecca from the Premier League just big thanks to you guys for giving up your time and answering all the questions and hopefully tomorrow night will go smoothly sure it will and just to say thanks and thanks to all you guys for joining us on the conversation