I HAVE spoken to Tim Penwell and Phil Senior in the past week regarding the chaos that the Football Association has managed to create within the Trowbridge and District League.

Upon reading the Wiltshire Times on Friday, August 20, I thought that I should express the views of FC Northbridge and myself.

There can be no doubting the severity of the situation when both the front and back cover of the Wiltshire Times is devoted to it. The effect of the new referee system the FA have devised, has far reaching implications for players, referees, management and officials, which has worryingly resulted in the pulling out of major league sponsors. All clubs will agree, that games should not, and cannot, go ahead without a qualified official. I have played in games in other leagues where there has not been a referee and being honest, on occasions the outcome can only be described as a joke. To strip the league of so many dedicated people, who invest a lot of personal time into local football, is outrageous.

For your information our club has been speaking with a locally-based referee (who shall remain un-named) who is very seriously debating quitting and possibly offering our club his services every week. The reason? Being allocated most of his games in Swindon. As I'm sure you can imagine, he's hardly impressed.

The FA statement that leagues being responsible for appointments had 'resulted in an imbalance of referee allocations with some competitions faring better than others' is absolute rubbish. The Trowbridge League has shown that it is possible to have sufficient numbers of referees and the FA would do well to use it as an example instead of making all those involved in the league suffer.

Our first game this season has been scheduled with no referee and I'm sure that none of our players want to lose his place in the side in order to officiate, although we may have no choice. I suppose I had better invest in a whistle and some linesman flags, that is supposing that this farce doesn't bring the end to a very competitive and successful league.

C MACKNESS

Secretary and Treasurer

FC Northbridge

How interesting to read of your front and back page lead stories and your Opinion editorial regarding the apparent redesignation of appointing referees to soccer matches in Wiltshire (Wiltshire Times August 20). I leave other readers to comment on the amount of space and coverage given.

During my time as an affiliated Wiltshire soccer referee 1978 to 1988, the procedure was the more senior qualified a referee the higher level of game he/she would be appointed to officiate. Therefore, a plethora of combinations of matches officiated could be subjected to a referee.

With the Trowbridge and District Football League being at the grass roots level of the pyramid structure, they tended to have newly qualified and those more senior in age as officials. A referee would offer those dates he/she was available in the forthcoming month to various league referee appointment secretaries. The higher league would have first option in appointing, the lower leagues would have the same notification and then appoint as remaining due dates were available.

What appears to be the case developing now, is that the Wiltshire Football Association will assist leagues, ie Salisbury and Swindon, who are suffering a more serious shortage of referees than Trowbridge. On paper, not a bad idea, but practically and historically not very conducive to mid and west Wiltshire officials, mainly because of travelling.

On refereeing a game last evening, I was made aware of the position in the Trowbridge league whereby of four Saturdays for this particular team in September only one match has a referee appointed. From this, I can quite understand the dismay and disappointment current senior Trowbridge League committee members find themselves in.

From my association with them and the Trowbridge league during the 1970s and 1980s, I always felt they had the best interests of local football at heart. With regard to the Trowbridge Leagues' development officer's resignation, is this the same Mr T Penwell who regularly wrote for the Wiltshire Times and was involved in interesting exchanges in your football reporting with a Southern League referee? If so, then my recollection was that refereeing was more under the spotlight than the game itself! I digress.

The plain truth is that there is a chronic shortage of referees throughout the country for the simple reason of varying attitudes towards referees of some players and club officials. These attitudes range from inconstructive to embarrassingly rude. What newly qualified referee is prepared to continue refereeing after suffering such alleged incidents is beyond comprehension. Please note the alarming statistic of 90 per cent of soccer referees packing in refereeing within their first year!

So, lads, for the sake of 42 teams, 600 players in west and north Wiltshire, cut out the dissent, foul and abusive language and encourage constructively and supportively the man in the middle.

From all my matches, some 830 between 1978 and date, I have never been able to "convert a poacher into a gamekeeper", namely entice a player into taking up the whistle. The common cry of "I could never do your job ref" is repeated on countless occasions and when asked why, the regular reply is "because of all the verbal".

So for the sake of the game, especially at local level, think before you carp, and perhaps more referees will stay in the game longer to assist in giving you a Saturday afternoon's pleasure.

name and address supplied