ANNUAL CONVENTION 2007

As most of you will be aware our Annual Convention and Training weekend is now fast approaching. As such there will be plenty of details and information appearing in Newsflash over the coming weeks. Last years event was very well attended and everyone played their part in making it such a success. This year we hope to make it even bigger and better and I’m sure we will with your help. So make sure you keep up to date via Newsflash

Guest Speaker

I am delighted to confirm that arrangements to bring over Jeff Roberson from the USA as our main speaker have now been concluded. Jeff hails from Texarkana, Texas and comes highly recommended from a number of different sources including Jamie Grant, our guest speaker in 2006. He currently officiates in the South Eastern Conference and is an experienced Instructor and Clinician. A copy of his CV is attached for your information. More details on Jeff’s lectures and presentations will follow in the coming weeks.

Location

The Convention will be held at The Coventry Hill Hotel, Rye Hill, Birmingham Road, Allesley, Coventry CV5 9PH, on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th March 2006. Location and directions can be found on the hotel website.

Registration

To register for the convention, you need to contact our Director of Finance, Charles Dean-young. Charlie can be contacted by email at finance@bafra.org. We will be making up personalised Convention Packs with Presentation handouts, DVD, Programme of Events, etc. As such you do need to pre-register.

Accommodation

Again we have negotiated excellent rates for accommodation which are detailed below. In addition, the BAFRA Board has also agreed to provide some funding to keep down the costs. The rates indicated are per room and include all discounts and a full breakfast

Twin Room: £40.00 per night
So if you share with someone it will only cost you £20.00 per night
Single Room: £40.00 per night
Double Room: £40.00 per night

Please note, to take advantage of the above rates you must book your room via our Director of Finance, Charles Dean-young. Charlie can be contracted by email at finance@bafra.org.
Remember, you will pay a lot more if you go direct to the Hotel.

As the event promises to be our biggest and best for a while I would recommend booking your room as early as possible. You can do this at the same time you register to attend.

Davie Parsons
training@bafra.org

EDITORIAL

Superbowl XLI

As the Bears are my second-favourite team (after the ones who wear stripes), I took Monday off this year for the first time in many years so that I could watch the Superbowl.

How about the first play for a Bear's fan? Opening kick-off returned for a touchdown! However, I got bored after an hour and went to bed at half-time - no stopping power, me, and can't stand Prince. Can't wait until next week and can start officiating again.

I have been looking around the web and I've found some Superbowl trivia:

• Superbowl XI was the last time when the starting coin-toss was made by an official.
• Tom Sifferman is the first official to work three consecutive Super Bowls -- XXXVII, XXXVIII and XXXIX.
• Five officials have worked five Super Bowls: Ron Botchan, Al Jury, Bob Beeks, Tom Kelleher and Jack Fette.
• Brothers will officiate in the Super Bowl for the first time, with umpire Carl Paganelli and back judge Perry Paganelli working the game.
• The Super Bowl officiating crew collectively has 73 years of NFL experience and 52 combined postseason game assignments.

However, once again BAFRA beats the NFL - we regularly have a crew with three generations of the same family (Rigby/Cockerill/Cockerill).

As to the game - Superbowl 2007 was set to go down in history before the coin toss. Chicago Bears coach, Lovie Smith, and Indianapolis Colts coach, Tony Dungy, are both quiet, unassuming coaches of formidable teams. These are men who are friends off the field and both are black. Their friends and families were justifiably proud when they made the Superbowl. The fact that this was the first time that any African-American coached team made the Big Game was a matter of pride for them.

Add to that moment in history the amazing opening play. Chicago Bears rookie, Devin Hester, became the first Super Bowl player to return the opening kickoff for a score. A 92 yard dance against the opposite team for the first score of the game. What a way to get the party started!

And, again, there was all that rain. Constant turnovers and a missed snap for a botched extra point had a huge effect on the score board.

A 52 yard run by Chicago's Thomas Jones threatened Indianapolis, but Peyton Manning throwing a 53 yard touchdown pass let the Colts shake off a bad start to lead the Bears 16 - 14 just as Superbowl XLI went into half time.

The Colts scored first with a field goal in the 3rd quarter, moving the score to 19 -14 and keeping the momentum on their side, but the Bears didn't get to the Superbowl by giving up when the going got rough.

They kept fighting, but the interception by Kelvin Hayden for the touchdown brought the score to 29 -17 with less than 12 minutes left to play. That took the heart out of the Bears fight, resulting in the Colts winning the title of 2007 Super Bowl World Champions!

The final score : Colts 29, Bears 17.

An historic game with plenty of action for the fans watching Superbowl XLI - a great football game from both teams...

Roger Stangroom
newsflash@bafra.org

NFL GAME AT WEMBLEY

As you probably know, it has been confirmed that the Miami Dolphins will play the New York Giants in an NFL regular season game at Wembley Stadium on Sunday 28th October.

Several people have contacted me and other directors volunteering their services as chain crew, ball boys, etc. Although we have contacted the NFL regarding the game, they have not got back to us yet, so we don't know whether they will want us, or in what capacity. When/if they do, we will open an application process for people who want to be involved. Pete Thom will be running that in accordance with the selection policy.

Some people have also asked about arrangements for buying tickets. The only information we know about that is what is stated on the NFL website http://www.nfllondon2007.com/ - if you want tickets I suggest you register there.

What we do know is that the game will raise the profile of the sport in Britain enormously. With my public relations hat on, I would like to hear from people who would like to help out with opportunities that BAFRA or BAFA might have to exploit that. With Jim Weir, we're looking at ways that we can get features about football and officiating in local or specialist press, on radio and TV, and into other sporting contexts. Ideas (particularly ones that don't require much extra work on our part!) welcome!!

Jim Briggs
president@bafra.org

EMAIL RECEIVED FROM BRISTOL UNIVERSITY BARRACUDA

I was reading BAFRA Newsflash 03/07 and notice you have marked 'Bristol University' as having prepaid for BAFRA officials. What BAFRA actually means is the 'University of the West of England' aka the UWE Bullets.

With the Bristol University Barracuda playing three associate games this spring, it may be worth changing to avoid confusion amongst your South West officials.

As much as we'd like to not pay for our officials when we've finalised the dates of our home fixtures, I think its only fair that we do, you all do a grand job after all.

Kind regards,

Charlie Wilson
Bristol Barracuda AFC

PRE-PAID TEAMS

Here is a full list of those teams who have pre-paid BAFRA for their officials. Every other team is expected to pay the officials on the day.

WEBSITE

Please note that a small change has been made to the list of members on the website to include their current membership status. The main intention of this is to help the Referee on a particular game to prepare the paperwork correctly, but should also enable you to check that your details are held correctly.

Roger Stangroom
secretary@bafra.org

MORE ON THE NEW TIMING RULE

College football: Rules that sped up games may see changes
By STEVE WIEBERG
USA TODAY

Controversial rules changes that effectively sped up college football games - and exasperated coaches - last season are likely to be modified, the supervisor of the NCAA's rules committee says.
"I don't think it'll stay that way," John Adams says less than three weeks before the committee meets in Albuquerque, N.M.

In voting at their annual convention earlier this month and in an annual questionnaire commissioned by the NCAA panel, coaches overwhelmingly called for rescission of the changes that shortened games, as designed, by 14 minutes in Division I-A. Offenses were forced to hurry to beat quicker clock starts after kickoffs and possession changes, and there were parallel reductions in the number of plays, yardage gained and scoring.

Discontent trickled down into Divisions II and III, where games are largely not televised and in some cases were played in fewer than 2 1/2 hours. "Some of them even said they played games in two hours," says Adams, a former supervisor of officials for the Western Athletic Conference and secretary-editor of the rules committee since 1992. "One coach called me, and he was almost in tears. He said, 'I've got 70 guys on my squad, and they work their fannies off all week, and I can't get them in the game.' "

The changes were approved a year ago. They start the clock on kickoffs rather than when the receiving team touches the ball and, after a change in possession, restart it as soon as the ball is ready for play rather than on the ensuing snap.

There were few, if any, objections to a third revision: shortening kicking tees by an inch to limit the number of clock-stopping touchbacks.

The average length of major-college games was pared from 3:21 in 2005 to 3:07 last season. With that came about 13 fewer plays, 66 fewer offensive yards and five fewer points a game - raising concerns that previously set team and individual records couldn't be approached.

First-year Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema created more unease in November when he used the clock-start-on-the-kickoff change to the Badgers' advantage in a 13-3 win vs. Penn State. They went intentionally offsides on kickoffs twice in succession, using 19 of 23 seconds left in the first half to minimize Penn State's chances of scoring. Penn State coach Joe Paterno was livid.

"The fact that it happened once," says Albany (N.Y.) coach Bob Ford, who heads the American Football Coaches Association's advisory rules committee, "ensures it'll probably happen more times. And you say, 'Wait a minute, that isn't what we had in mind at all.'"

Adams and others say the 2006 changes probably will be adjusted rather than thrown out, perhaps returning to starting the clock when a kickoff reaches the receiver, then immediately restarting the clock only if the return ends inbounds. The NCAA committee meets Feb. 8-11.

One other area of 2006 concern that apparently won't bring major committee tweaking: replay. "I think it went OK," Adams says despite a September glitch that cost Oklahoma a victory at Oregon.

"There's no foolproof system no matter what you put out there," says Dennis Poppe, the NCAA's managing director of baseball and football. "I think expectations were pretty high. And when expectations are high, you'd better make sure your system is refined and consistent and as efficient as it should be. ... (But) at this point, I think it's not a change of the rule. It's more mechanics."

OUR ANTIPODEAN COUSINS

Hello

It is with a lot of pleasure that we announce the launch of our web site:

www.nzgoa.org.nz

This is the realisation of a long-held ambition for the Association, and marks another milestone in the life of the Association as we head towards our 10th Anniversary in August.

Please take the time to visit the site, where the forums now dwell, and have a look at what's there. This is only the start, and if you have any suggestions for additions, please let Andrew know.

I'd like to thank Andrew on behalf of us all for the significant time and effort he has put in to getting the site up and running.

Cheers
Stephen Bowness
President

REFEREEING FORUM

Hi there,

My name is Matt Heasman, and I'm the webmaster of www.britballnow.co.uk.

I will be shortly rebranding the site and getting more exposure (hopefully!) to it - currently I'm running at approximately 5,000 unique homepage hits a month.

In my forums sections I have added a refereeing forum, which I thought you might like to link to as I notice you don't have one on your site?

You could use it to put any news on there (as well as you're own site) etc

Here's the forum index and you'll see the refereeing forum half way down

http://britballnow.4umshops.co.uk/index.php

You are more than welcome to link to the refereeing forum - let me know

Regards,
Matt Heasman

BAD-ZEBRAS.COM

Noticed this site on the web. Basically it allows fans to vote on the performance of NFL officiating crews each week and rank them.

One description of the site reads:
Are you tired of the feeling powerless against the most evil force in the universe, NFL referees? Well, get used to it. At least you can go to this website to rate and look at other people's ratings of NFL officials. You can see just how hard your team got proctologized. That popping sound you just heard was an aneurysm.

Roger Stangroom
secretary@bafra.org

DISCIPLINARY CASES

GAME MANAGEMENT REPORTS

PLAUDITS

Leeds Celtics and Lancashire Bombers

Both Teams played the game in a great spirit, especially Lancs who were on the end of a vast score difference!

Chris Jarvis #10

Players and coaches of Derby Braves & Nottingham Outlaws

The officials would like to applaud the excellent effort and attitude shown by both teams in the tight and hard fought match between the Derby Braves and Nottingham Outlaws. Plaudits go to the players and coaches- well done.

Keith Alldritt #323

UWE Bullets and Bath Killer Bees

Excellent field, good chain crew. Both teams demonstrated fine sportsmanship.

Randall Liss #376

Ed Elliott also deserves a mention, he worked a 3-man crew on only his second game and I'm told he had a great game.

Pete Thom
operations@bafra.org

ROGER'S RHETORIC

The opinions expressed in this Newsflash are those of the contributors, and are not necessarily those of BAFRA or its Directors.