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Post by New(ish) Ref on Aug 19, 2008 11:54:37 GMT
I remember Elite and I am not that old. (No laughing at the back.)
Working the wings on a 6 or 7 is different to what we do week in, week out. For me, the positions where this is hardest are HL and LJ where you are in the same place as you have been every other week, but now have to do some things completely differently. I have spent entire games working as a deep official with upfield officials who hadn't changed out of 4 man mechanics. It was immensely frustrating.
We need the opportunity to practise these things, irrespective of the quality of the game, and irrespective of the closeness of the game, so that, when it comes to the showpiece games (Bowls etc.), it isn't new to us and we don't end up with things like two officials at the same spot. Elite game assignments during the season are development opportunities, and in my view that is how they should be primarily viewed in the current climate.
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kb
Qualified
Posts: 73
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Post by kb on Aug 19, 2008 14:13:28 GMT
There's no sense in working your biggest game of the year in a 7-person crew where 4 officials (wings and deep wings) are not experienced. By "experienced" I mean they worked at least 5 games in that position in a 6- or 7-person crew in that particular season, so the mechanics are a matter of drill and automatics and not a matter of thinking.
So you have to have "lesser" games during the season, where those who probably will work the playoffs, finals and "big games" can hone their skills.
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Post by Osric Pureheart on Aug 19, 2008 14:51:23 GMT
Personally Elite makes me think of flying a spaceship, buying and selling stuff (search wikipedia for Elite video game) but then I'm an old git. I believe that I'm obliged by law to point out that Elite's two years older than I am, and I have many happy memories one wet summer of digging our old Speccy out of the cellar with my dad and having the joy of ( as the song goes) "five minutes fingers crossed hoping not to witness the terror, of R: Tape Loading Error".
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Post by martinc on Aug 19, 2008 14:57:38 GMT
The Semi finals tend to be the best games of the year especially in the southern divisions as when it comes to a north south final they tend to be extremly one-sided.
The term elite is wrong, ive done bowl games and ive done all sorts of games, and some of the games that some so called elite officials turn there noses up at turn out to be a barnstormer of a game.
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Post by fuelmixer on Aug 19, 2008 15:45:29 GMT
Unfortunately the 13th is a sat in school term, therefore I am working as my school is a 6 day a week job. I am thus one of the unable crowd. Although I have done a 7 man crew, during my training period of 10 games as a back Judge. (move over dan) ))
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Post by phclarke on Aug 19, 2008 17:56:08 GMT
Personally Elite makes me think of flying a spaceship, buying and selling stuff (search wikipedia for Elite video game) but then I'm an old git. I believe that I'm obliged by law to point out that Elite's two years older than I am, and I have many happy memories one wet summer of digging our old Speccy out of the cellar with my dad and having the joy of ( as the song goes) "five minutes fingers crossed hoping not to witness the terror, of R: Tape Loading Error". bastard! I've now been forced to sit here in the office playing that song now to get it out of my head
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Post by Ed Herk on Aug 19, 2008 19:55:52 GMT
Personally Elite makes me think of flying a spaceship, buying and selling stuff (search wikipedia for Elite video game) but then I'm an old git. I believe that I'm obliged by law to point out that Elite's two years older than I am, and I have many happy memories one wet summer of digging our old Speccy out of the cellar with my dad and having the joy of ( as the song goes) "five minutes fingers crossed hoping not to witness the terror, of R: Tape Loading Error". "Jetpac!" God, I loved that game.... I also had a 128k Speccy with the inbuilt cassette and on some of the later games I had to endure the "wait 10 minutes and hope to god it loads", never mind this 5 minutes pish. One trick I SERIOUSLY believed worked was to go out of the room and listen to the game loading - I daren't even look in case the "magic horizontal lines" had disappeared from the border of the screen and the border was just alternating from green to blue (or black to red or whatever) Either you know what I mean or you don't, there's no in-between. Ah, those were the days - Alan, you have no idea what it was like experiencing the 16k Speccy "the first time around". It was crap really but with my rose-tinted glasses on it seems like those were the golden days of yore! ;D PS Yes I am mad but it gets me through life... PPS How did this thread go from a discussion on training to talking about antique computers? Oh yeah, it was Steve's fault...
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Post by New(ish) Ref on Aug 19, 2008 20:11:33 GMT
Manic Miner. Nuff Said.
(Or if you want to go back even earlier, 3D Monster Maze on the ZX81.)
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Post by bafra31 on Aug 25, 2008 10:41:39 GMT
Elite. Perhaps a poor choice of term, but I can't think of anything better,- Premier? 'A' license? If we were starting it tomorrow, I would call it the Performance Programme rather than Elite. Whatever it's called, it's not for the best officials, it's for the ones who are serious about getting better and are willing to put in the extra commitment to do so. When it started, we included some people who were borderline but we thought it might give them a boost to show what they were capable of. In some of those cases, sadly they haven't seized the opportunity to show the necessary leadership (in my humble opinion). I know there is a risk that non-elite officials will see themselves as second-class citizens. I guess that might be how in the USA Div 1 College officials see themselves with respect to NFL officials; how Div 2 officials see themselves compared with Div 1, and all the way down to JV. That's inherent in any activity and those at the lower level either need to do the necessary to move up, or stop complaining and accept their lot! Standards only improve if you give people incentives to strive for. I sometimes worry that we don't have enough incentives for the Elite Programme: not enough good games; not enough prospects of further advancement (e.g. EFAF). Also, while the Elite Programme currently provides experience of 6 and 7-man mechanics, BritBowl weekend aside, it still can't give much experience of working games under the pressure of a big crowd or TV coverage. Being able to handle the pressure is an essential attribute of higher-level officials in all sports. Somebody asked about levels of training/performance. The National Occupational Standards for officiating provide 4 levels which in our terms might be: 1 - team judges (i.e. not a full-time official) 2 - basic level (BAFL2, BUAFL, youth, ...) 3 - national level (BAFL1, Prem, ...) 4 - international level (people being considered for EFAF) The Elite Programme sits best at level 4. A question to ponder is whether our existing induction training covers level 2, or is it really level 3 because there is a good chance a new official will be thrown in to a Div 1 or Prem game in their first season? Bottom line - we need more officials!
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Post by withtwoflakes on Aug 25, 2008 13:27:21 GMT
.....there is a good chance a new official will be thrown in to a Div 1 or Prem game in their first season? ...and IMHO absolutely should not be, it is a disservice to a rookie official to throw them to the wolves in this manner.
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Post by notaclue on Aug 25, 2008 16:08:22 GMT
rubbish,i worked games in my first season at some of the top games that season. O's,blitzs,sundevils.i think it is to do with who you work with. i was very lucky to work with people like coleman,wickham and yates.also by working some of these game it help me to see what level i needed to be at when working on a high level game.so to say a new official should not work big in there first season is the great word of mr coleman "crap"
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Post by Osric Pureheart on Aug 25, 2008 16:26:02 GMT
It happened to me too, and I reckon that if I hadn't had 6 years of doing soccer already under my belt by the time I was faced with Blitz v Os as my 12th game of football, I'd have been completely lost. As it was, I knew (if nothing else) how to sell myself and look like I knew what I was doing, so I got by. I'm not necessarily worried that a first-year official wouldn't be able to make the right calls, but I am worried that he wouldn't be able to sell himself properly and you need to be able to do that at that level: it's not good enough to get it right, if you don't get it right in the right way it'll hurt the crew.
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Post by dommer1 on Aug 25, 2008 16:56:34 GMT
notaclue, that is your experience, but I've seen the absolute opposite. An official that is not ready, working a game where the players expect a certain officiating quality, might be scared away from officiating. I'm with the icecream guy again.
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Post by New(ish) Ref on Aug 25, 2008 17:13:08 GMT
I concur with the cautious approach as well.
I'm not saying it isn't doable, but without an appropriate combination of the official concerned, crew, teams and game, there is the risk that the experience is a negative one for the official rather than a positive and encouraging one.
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Post by New(ish) Ref on Aug 25, 2008 17:20:12 GMT
Elite. Perhaps a poor choice of term, but I can't think of anything better,- Premier? 'A' license? If we were starting it tomorrow, I would call it the Performance Programme rather than Elite. Whatever it's called, it's not for the best officials, it's for the ones who are serious about getting better and are willing to put in the extra commitment to do so. When it started, we included some people who were borderline but we thought it might give them a boost to show what they were capable of. In some of those cases, sadly they haven't seized the opportunity to show the necessary leadership (in my humble opinion). I know there is a risk that non-elite officials will see themselves as second-class citizens. I guess that might be how in the USA Div 1 College officials see themselves with respect to NFL officials; how Div 2 officials see themselves compared with Div 1, and all the way down to JV. That's inherent in any activity and those at the lower level either need to do the necessary to move up, or stop complaining and accept their lot! Standards only improve if you give people incentives to strive for. I sometimes worry that we don't have enough incentives for the Elite Programme: not enough good games; not enough prospects of further advancement (e.g. EFAF). Also, while the Elite Programme currently provides experience of 6 and 7-man mechanics, BritBowl weekend aside, it still can't give much experience of working games under the pressure of a big crowd or TV coverage. Being able to handle the pressure is an essential attribute of higher-level officials in all sports. Somebody asked about levels of training/performance. The National Occupational Standards for officiating provide 4 levels which in our terms might be: 1 - team judges (i.e. not a full-time official) 2 - basic level (BAFL2, BUAFL, youth, ...) 3 - national level (BAFL1, Prem, ...) 4 - international level (people being considered for EFAF) The Elite Programme sits best at level 4. A question to ponder is whether our existing induction training covers level 2, or is it really level 3 because there is a good chance a new official will be thrown in to a Div 1 or Prem game in their first season? Bottom line - we need more officials! Is there any reason the programme could not be re-branded?
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