Mick
Life President
The history aspect of this fixture has been well documented elsewhere, so straight on to the officials:
The referee is Callum Walchester, a police officer from Lowestoft. He was making progress along the Assistant Referee path, having lined at Roots Hall on half a dozen occasions, but decided to concentrate on his refereeing and has been working his way up with that, having been promoted to the National League at the beginning of last season. He has refereed Southend four times before.
Firstly, a very reasonable performance in the FA Cup qualifying match against Chertsey at Roots Hall, in 2021/22. I'd seen him quite a bit in the National League South and his approach had always been one of minimum intervention so I was not surprised by a good display. They opened the scoring but we rallied for a comfortable 4-1 win and there were no cards.
Next came an away match at Woking in 2023/24 which happened to be his second ever National League match. A 2-0 away win with yellow for Demetriou and two of theirs. All good there.
More recently he took charge of last season’s Trophy exit on penalties against Hampton and Richmond, another decent performance from him with just two yellows, both to them.
His fourth Southend game was at home against York also last season. A 1-0 defeat with bookings for Ralph and three of theirs.
His National League career this season has comprised just 4 matches which have produced a high 27 yellow cards and one red. Twelve of those cards came in his last match, Braintree v Fylde !! Perhaps the minimum intervention policy has gone out of the window!
Assisting will beDaniel Cook from Braintree and Christopher Myatt from Dartford. Fourth Official is Chay Hathway from Woodbridge, a techie working for the FA Referees Department, with his first Southend appointment.
The referee is Callum Walchester, a police officer from Lowestoft. He was making progress along the Assistant Referee path, having lined at Roots Hall on half a dozen occasions, but decided to concentrate on his refereeing and has been working his way up with that, having been promoted to the National League at the beginning of last season. He has refereed Southend four times before.
Firstly, a very reasonable performance in the FA Cup qualifying match against Chertsey at Roots Hall, in 2021/22. I'd seen him quite a bit in the National League South and his approach had always been one of minimum intervention so I was not surprised by a good display. They opened the scoring but we rallied for a comfortable 4-1 win and there were no cards.
Next came an away match at Woking in 2023/24 which happened to be his second ever National League match. A 2-0 away win with yellow for Demetriou and two of theirs. All good there.
More recently he took charge of last season’s Trophy exit on penalties against Hampton and Richmond, another decent performance from him with just two yellows, both to them.
His fourth Southend game was at home against York also last season. A 1-0 defeat with bookings for Ralph and three of theirs.
His National League career this season has comprised just 4 matches which have produced a high 27 yellow cards and one red. Twelve of those cards came in his last match, Braintree v Fylde !! Perhaps the minimum intervention policy has gone out of the window!
Assisting will be
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