Reblogged from Freebody, Free Speech:

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Originally featured on FootballFanCast.com in 2011

The talk of referees in football has never been a positive one, especially this season with Sir Alex Ferguson facing a 5-match ban for comments he made about match officials. But the men in black (or whatever colour they’re wearing these days) have a history in the game, without them football games would not be able to work and the rules they are using are in place to make the game better.

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Great Piece on Ken Aston - Football Legend.

English football (soccer) referee Howard Webb (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week the England squad was named for the upcoming European Championships.  However there not the only english men going to Poland and Ukraine with a second team being named…..the match officials.

This championship being the first with Extra Assistant Referees we have 6 english match officials going to the finals.  Howard Webb, Michael Mullarkey  &Peter Kirkup will be Referee & Assistants respectively, with Stephen Child as backup Assistant incase one becomes injured.    The extra assistant referees are Martin Atkinson  & Mark Clattenburg.  Clattenburg is already in for a busy summer with his appointment to the olympics.

Uefa have also appointed four officials who will be dedicated fourth officials and a further four reserve assistant referees.

Full list off officials can be found here

As well as English representation credit should be paid to the Scottish FA for also providing a six man team.

Related articles

• Assistant Referee Instructions (therefereesblog.wordpress.com)
• UEFA Sets Referee Guidelines For EURO 2012 – ‘Game’s Image, Punishment For Mobbing Refs’ Included (theoriginalwinger.com)
• Six Scots officials for Euro 2012 (bbc.co.uk)
• Premier League referees and linesmen are improving all the time – and that’s official (telegraph.co.uk)

During the Trabzonspor’s and Fenerbahce match recently, Emre made a racist comment to Didier Zakora.  In this case the Turkish FA banned him for 3 games (is that enough?)     In the return game the Trabzonspor players decide to make their feelings known!

Related articles

• Didier Zokora v Emre: Let’s kick racism in the balls (offthepost.info)
• Emre banned for insulting Zokora (bbc.co.uk)

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200 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The draw has today taken place for the football competition that forms part of the 2012 london olympics.   I was keen to find out who I would be seeing at the city of Coventry stadium….Mexico vs Gabon get you excited!

With all the talk of the Great Britain side and who it will (or wont more likely) contain.  Its good to see that Great Britain is being represetneted by Mark Clattenberg, Simon Beck and Stephen Child.   I was impressed with   Ravshan Irmatov at the 2010 world cup and he seems to be well respected within FIFA, so maybe a good bet for the final. Infact I expect he may refere the England Great Britain vs Uruguay match.

List of Mens Officials and Women s Officials.

Related articles

• London 2012 football is more than an extended Beckham UK farewell tour | Sean Ingle (guardian.co.uk)
• U.S. women draw familiar foes for Olympics group (soccerbyives.net)
• Official London 2012 Olympics Video Game Due 26th Of June (itproportal.com)
• London 2012 Olympics: Mark Clattenburg only British referee for Games football tournament (telegraph.co.uk)

Reblogged from TechCrunch:

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Traditional whiteboards are great for nearly everything but portability. Scribbling down physics problems? Sure. Impromptu game of tic-tac-toe? Of course. Folding up and putting it in your pocket? Not really possible with a normal whiteboard. But the Noteboard isn’t a normal whiteboard. It’s a dual-side, foldable whiteboard that might just change the world (but probably not).

When unfolded the Noteboard is about the size of 27 notecards but it collapses into a pocket-friendly package.

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Could be a useful bit of kit for new Ref courses!

Related articles

• Tom Daley prepares for London 2012 with new diving partner Ashley Young (offthepost.info)
• Young not a diver – PFA chairman (bbc.co.uk)

The FA have confirmed that Phil Dowd will referee this years FA Cup final betwen Liverpool & Chelsea.   He will be assisted by Stuart Burt (Northamptonshire FA) and Andrew Garratt (Staffordshire FA) along with Fourth Official Michael Jones (Cheshire FA) and reserve assistant referee Simon Long (Cornwall FA).

Congratulations to all.

Watch out on the day as rumour is Umbro will be releasing the new Referees kit for next season.

Related articles

• Live Sport Reports: FA confirm Cup final kick-off time (walesonline.co.uk)
• National Sport: FA confirm Cup final kick-off time (coventrytelegraph.net)
• Liverpool vs Chelsea: FA Cup Final the Perfect Tonic to Below-Par League Form (epltalk.com)
• FA ditch traditional 3pm Cup final kick-off (thesun.co.uk)

Tanks to @willpare for this newspaper article

This years all start game in the US will be smart as it will be used to launch the team tracking element of MiCoach. It looks to be like a variation of Prozone, however the extension to this will be the fact that fans will be able to view the data as well.

Link to the story