Like a lot of Northlanders, I love getting out and watching sport whenever possible. It’s great to walk around any sports venue and just watch any old game or sporting event at any level of competition – it’s fantastic to see the keen players (especially the younger ones) full of enthusiasm out there playing or participating, to see the coaches, managers, mums, dads, families and friends providing support on the side-line and to see the officials out there ensuring the game or event is being run fairly.

Without these officials, we wouldn’t be out there playing or supporting those that are participating. It just would not be possible – imagine the sport you play or watch without proper officials in charge. It would soon degenerate into a bit of a mess – no one to pull up players breaking the laws of the game, to call half and full time, to judge the scoring, to time participants or record results. It would be a farce, as one of the reasons we play or participate in sport is for the competition – winning and losing are key components to all sport, and it would be next to impossible to achieve this without officials.

But a lot of sports find it very hard to attract people into officiating. Why is this do you think? Well, it seems to me that a lot of sports followers are very good officials – in their own mind anyway! Some tend to let the officials know when they think they have not officiated in the correct way – and for some this is not said or done in a very nice way. Is it any wonder we have trouble attracting officials?

Adults seem to be definitely put off by these ‘mouthy’ people on the side lines, and I have no doubt it stops many from putting their hand up to officiate.

Hockey Northland seem to have reversed this trend by attracting young people into umpiring – they have set up an excellent scheme where young umpires are recruited, trained, mentored and recognised. Young people pick up things very fast, and therefore it is no accident that hockey has produced the likes of Melanie Oakden, who became an international hockey umpire at a relatively young age.

It also seems to me that most of those ‘mouthy’ people on the side lines have a much tougher time sounding off at younger people than they would at their peers (although I’m sure there is a portion of them that it doesn’t worry!).

And then you get a sport like swimming, where there is a culture of parents of swimmers just having to pitch in – it is virtually compulsory to have some kind of officiating role, as it takes between 40 and 50 officials to run a swim meet. It is basically accepted that each parent/supporter will have to take their turn officiating, and like Hockey Northland, Swimming Northland provides excellent training, mentoring, recognition (and food for!) their officials.

I guess it doesn’t really matter how it happens across the different sports – as long as it happens, and in an effective manner. But certainly some sports could take the good from what a lot of other sports do in terms of officiating and apply it to their sport.

Without officials, playing or watching would not be half as much fun as it is.