Home › News › Alex Whalley considered for North Young Hockey Umpires List
Alex Whalley considered for North Young Hockey Umpires List
Year 11 Alex Whalley was asked to apply for consideration to be selected for the North Young Umpires list after being watched umpire U15 county matches in January at Leeds Grammar School. This he did and he was selected to umpire at the North Regional finals at Belle Vue in Manchester.
He attended an early morning briefing where he met the other Young Umpires and the team of coaches that would be coaching, mentoring and assessing them throughout the day. The morning games were all the under 11 winners from the various counties. Alex was umpiring the boys' competitions and he umpired 3 games and was then selected to umpire the final.
In the afternoon it was the turn of the Under 13s and again he was selected for the boys section, which included our very own Merchant Taylors' Team. He umpired another 3 games and also the semi-final of the girls' tournament.
At the end of the day, 4 umpires were selected to move forward to the next stage and, although not progressing to the finals at Nottingham, Alex received a most promising appraisal about his umpiring and will continue as a North umpire next season.
Hockey umpiring now has a national structure to select the best young umpires and train them to national standards and beyond to international umpiring. This process starts in the counties and moves on to the regions and finally onto the national lists.
