Mick
Life President
Referee for tomorrow's match is Keith Hill from Hertfordshire. He was the FA's Regional Referees Manager for the East of England but spent a couple of years in Japan on some refereeing mission. He is now back and in his third full season of the resumption of his Football League career.
He has been refereeing since he was fourteen. Promoted to the National List of Assistant referees in 1994 and served for a further three seasons as a SG assistant referee before being promoted to the Referees List in 1998. His career appointments include refereeing a semi-final of the FA Trophy, and being appointed as 4th Official on the 2002 Game of Unity in Kabul.
He is in his 17th season and is, in my opinion, way past his best (which wasn't very good anyway). I'm sure his previous position had much to do with his extended run on the list as better officials seem to have been culled during this time. I did sometimes wonder if he benefited from positive discrimination.
This will be his 23rd League and Cup match in charge of Southend. By and large, we have done quite well with him in charge winning far more than losing. His matches have generally been littered with pickiness, inconsistency and plenty of cards, some justified. He was more than capable of whistling any football match to death and hasn't had a cardless match for years.
His last match was the away defeat at Newport last season with a yellow apiece (ours went to Timlin).
He was in charge of the splendid (we were splendid, he wasn't!) win at Portsmouth the season before last, showing 2 yellows to them and a red to Woodrow and yellow to Prosser and later that season took charge of our disappointing home draw with Hartlepool - cautions for Philips and Leonard and one of theirs.
Before that his last Southend home match was the home draw with Rotherham towards the end of 2012/13 (2 yellows each) and previously the home win against Oxford 2010/11. Three yellows apiece and a red for them.
Preceded by the 1-0 home defeat (penalty) by Oldham the season before that. Before that the rearranged match against Scunthorpe; and just previous to that a couple of weeks earlier when he called off the same match seconds before the scheduled kick off.
He also did Yeovil away that season.
"Highlights" of his Southend matches: the home defeat by Kingstonian in the Cup (Roget off), home win over Darlington (Searle off), the more recent away defeat at Palace (one of his more ok games) and the ever so forgetable 0-0 draw at Oxford in the Cup.
He has amassed a massive 132 yellows from 32 matches this season although reds are comparatively modest at 5.
Assistants are Joe Hull from Stockport and Mark Duncan from Warrington, with fast rising black official Akil Howson from Leicester doing the numbers board.
He has been refereeing since he was fourteen. Promoted to the National List of Assistant referees in 1994 and served for a further three seasons as a SG assistant referee before being promoted to the Referees List in 1998. His career appointments include refereeing a semi-final of the FA Trophy, and being appointed as 4th Official on the 2002 Game of Unity in Kabul.
He is in his 17th season and is, in my opinion, way past his best (which wasn't very good anyway). I'm sure his previous position had much to do with his extended run on the list as better officials seem to have been culled during this time. I did sometimes wonder if he benefited from positive discrimination.
This will be his 23rd League and Cup match in charge of Southend. By and large, we have done quite well with him in charge winning far more than losing. His matches have generally been littered with pickiness, inconsistency and plenty of cards, some justified. He was more than capable of whistling any football match to death and hasn't had a cardless match for years.
His last match was the away defeat at Newport last season with a yellow apiece (ours went to Timlin).
He was in charge of the splendid (we were splendid, he wasn't!) win at Portsmouth the season before last, showing 2 yellows to them and a red to Woodrow and yellow to Prosser and later that season took charge of our disappointing home draw with Hartlepool - cautions for Philips and Leonard and one of theirs.
Before that his last Southend home match was the home draw with Rotherham towards the end of 2012/13 (2 yellows each) and previously the home win against Oxford 2010/11. Three yellows apiece and a red for them.
Preceded by the 1-0 home defeat (penalty) by Oldham the season before that. Before that the rearranged match against Scunthorpe; and just previous to that a couple of weeks earlier when he called off the same match seconds before the scheduled kick off.
He also did Yeovil away that season.
"Highlights" of his Southend matches: the home defeat by Kingstonian in the Cup (Roget off), home win over Darlington (Searle off), the more recent away defeat at Palace (one of his more ok games) and the ever so forgetable 0-0 draw at Oxford in the Cup.
He has amassed a massive 132 yellows from 32 matches this season although reds are comparatively modest at 5.
Assistants are Joe Hull from Stockport and Mark Duncan from Warrington, with fast rising black official Akil Howson from Leicester doing the numbers board.
