South Holland school pupils have netted a football refereeing qualification.
Twelve pupils from Spalding Grammar School were put through their paces by Lincolnshire FA referee tutors during the weekend-long training course, held at the school.
The course entailed a two-hour evening induction session, followed by a full weekend of theoretical and practical workshops in order to provide the young people with the knowledge and skills for refereeing.
It then finished with the students being assessed while refereeing a small-sided match.
As part of the wider qualification the students will now complete five matches before sitting the formal referees examination to fully qualify and begin officiating local matches.
The games they will officiate include some played in the Peterborough Junior Alliance League, meaning that teams in South Holland will benefit from this new influx of referees.
Spalding Grammar School Assistant Headteacher Dave Endersbee said: “It gave me great pleasure help organise and host this event once again. I am particularly pleased to see so many of our students engaged in the process once again, three more than last year.
“As a school we have recently introduced termly themes of setting high expectations, taking responsibility and getting out of comfort zones.
“These students have demonstrated exactly these values through the completion of this course. We have already spoken about arranging the course again for next year, to hopefully another cohort of keen participants.”
The new refs at Spalding Grammar School are James Harrison, Jack Forster, Jacob Drew, George Thornley, Joshua Ling, Daniel Plant, Tom McKenna, Alex Doughty, James Clark, Ben Baker, Finley Marston-Smith and Luke Fox.
Holbeach United Junior Girls U15 also provided three new young referees, Lois Bell, Kayleigh Waters and Amelia Watkin, who will further swell the growing number of young women who have taken up the whistle in Lincolnshire.
