“I never thought referees did as much as what we do now,” says Sam Allison, who played for Chippenham Town and Frome Town during his career, which began at Swindon. “We are training full-time, sometimes two, three sessions a day, making sure that we are ready on a Saturday afternoon.”
“Some of it – not understanding referees’ workload – is probably ignorance, lack of awareness, lack of communication being disseminated to people out there. I think of my ignorance of just thinking referees just turned up, refereed the game and then went home.”
“We have all the preparation, all the training, all the sacrifices, all the commitment, all the desire, all the support networks, people investing in you to make sure that you are ready in the best position to deliver a game.”
Allison, a former firefighter, serves as the fourth official for Manchester City’s match against Crystal Palace on Friday, while his colleague Sam Barrott has been assigned to Saturday’s early kickoff between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.
Barrott recently took charge of Arsenal’s Community Shield victory over Manchester City and was in the Faroe Islands on August 20 to referee Ki Klaksvik’s 0-0 draw with Riga in the Europa Conference League.
Different teams and tactics require distinct approaches for each match, with officials working closely with Pro Ref’s analysis team to receive key insights about how opponents are likely to play and how to maintain the game’s rhythm.
This comes after an intensive summer of preparation designed to ensure officials can meet – and exceed – the demands of Premier League football.
“At the moment we’ve got five substitutions and we see all the time fresh legs for teams can change the momentum in a game,” explains Barrott. “If three new attacking players are on who are all very pacey after 70 minutes, you know they’re going to change the way they play, they’re going to try and push.”
“That normally means an increase in output for us and when that happens, we’re not at any point where we say, ‘we can’t handle this’. We’ve been pushing the demands of where we are, everybody’s trying to get better. Football believes in the 1% gains – every game or every training session we’re very similar in mindset, we want to be better.”
