Ref Rob Blowes the whistle on his football involvement

Rob Blowes is a twenty three year old football referee from Haverfordwest who has been officiating for just four years and has recently been promoted to Class Six, allowing him to officiate at any game throughout West Wales, despite the fact that he has a hearing impediment.
He has already experienced life in the Welsh league at a tender age in terms of his experience as an official, and is forthright in his views on refereeing, as well as the problems that being deaf cause to someone who is unable to hear what is going on.
Rob had considered taking up the whistle when he was a youngster living in London but began taking up the whistle following a FAW referee’s course tutored by Referees Association of Wales chairman Pedr McMullen when he was 19 years of age, who did so much work around Rob’s work schedule, as did Eddie Oliver in encouraging Rob’s participation.
As Rob told us, “I've been asked by many players and some officials as to why I have taken up refereeing. The answer is simple; I've always wanted to be involved in football in some form or another. Since I couldn't make it as a player, I felt the best thing I could do was to experience the game from the official's point of view. Current ref Jonathan Twigg has also encouraged me every step of the way, as have dad Steve and mum Ruth.”

Family help

Steve attends most of Rob’s matches and helps out with the nitty-gritty things like confirming appointments, since it is done by phone, whilst Ruth sews on his badges and makes sure his kit is packed ready for match days.
As Rob says, “Add in my uncle, Alan Wills and friend John Bicknell, who were both involved at Prendergast Villa, and I have been lucky to have so much support.”
Ask Rob about whether his hearing impediment has any consequences and he can also supply a ready answer:
“I can certainly explain what it is like to walk on to the football field with the ability that some referee's envy and might think is quite a bonus since I have to referee a match, without having any idea of what is being said around and to me, from players, the technical areas and the crowd. At least no match delegate can accuse me of being influenced in my decision making!

Player understanding

Players have quickly understood they can express themselves verbally as opposed to physically when I’m officiating. As I hopefully progress up the pyramid then I’m going to have to be explicit in my pre-match instructions to the assistants as regards the tolerance level and intervention I expect. My hearing impairment doesn’t mean I can’t set the tone for decent behaviour and when I have needed to intervene in verbal exchanges I have done.
It is a fact that when there's an injury or an off the ball incident it has been difficult to get my attention towards it, without one of the players giving me a tap on the shoulder in the hope that I will sort it out. This has gained me a few criticisms from some match delegates, informing me that players should be cautioned for tapping me on the shoulder in attempt to get my attention. If I were to do such a thing however, it would be infinitely more difficult to get involved in sorting out any trouble and it would in my opinion only serve to further alienate players. Perhaps delegates need to understand how I am able to man manage a situation and allow the players to be my fifth sense.”

Talking difficulties

Rob readily admits that a major difficulty of being a hearing-impaired referee is that when players want to talk to him or he needs to talk to them, it often becomes very difficult to do so.
He told us,
“I have to lip read what they are saying and some players fail to realise this fact, or ignore it. In any language a yellow or red card paints a picture worth a thousand words. There are occasions when it is further compounded by the fact that those who ARE indeed willing to help me out by trying their best to communicate get frustrated when I have difficulty lip-reading them. I am after all a referee and perhaps my eyesight isn’t the best!
I will make no excuses, but lip-reading is a life skill; only a very select few people can ever lip-read someone they've only just met immediately without practice, for no lip pattern, accent or pronunciation of any word is ever the same. Indeed it can often take months or years of knowing someone before I will ever be able to lip-read what they are saying with a 90% success rate. Fifteen seconds in football is a long time, but not that long!”

Refereeing style

Rob is also strong in his view that he can be an asset as a referee because
“I feel I have a refreshing refereeing style. I’m to the point if I need to say something, but my body language communicates a lot for me. The Laws of the Game have a number of examples where the body shows to the world what the referee is thinking, or doing, the advantage sign being the one most appreciated by everyone. If I think the tempo of the game is raised, with the tackles I can clearly admonish a player with hand movements.
However I can’t use one of the referee's most powerful tools, ‘a simple telling off/chat to the players which can do wonders in calming a situation’. This I feel is an area of my game where I need to work harder and be more alert to the benefit of all the players and something perhaps match delegates or the FAW referees officer can guide me on. I'll go out and do the job and I'll keep out of their way and let them play a game of football within the Laws of the Game. In fact I think some enjoy it that I'm not very verbal and that their interaction with me can be kept to a minimum! The majority of games are like this and I must personally give complete credit to the players and teams who, themselves, allow the match to be played in a way which encompasses my own style of refereeing.”

Society welcome

Rob says that everyone at the Pembrokeshire Referees’ Society has made him feel welcome, with minutes of the meeting being emailed to him before every new meeting so he can understand what had been agreed on and discussed previously. In just his fourth year of refereeing, he has benefitted from being a hearing impaired referee over and above some of his colleagues. He had the privilege of meeting Andrew Rodda of Plymouth, a hearing impaired referee himself who operates as an assistant on the Football League. He invited Rob to accompany him to the Liberty Stadium, home of Swansea City when he was officiating at a game there. The advice and information he gave Rob was a terrific help. Rob also admires former refs Graham Poll and Collina, and current official Howard Webb, whilst his sporting icons are Eric Cantona and Manchester United, Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal.

Optimistic outlook

Despite his disability, Rob is very optimistic about the future and told us,
“I must stress that things would probably have been a lot more difficult if I wasn't lucky enough to be blessed with an extremely good group of people around me, willing to help me out. I would like to say that there is probably a lot of information of how being hearing impaired has an impact on your ability to referee the game and how you handle incidents that I haven’t discussed here. Perhaps the Pembrokeshire Society meetings are the correct forum to widen this discussion?
For the short term I want to establish myself on the Welsh League and now it’s all down to my performance, where I am learning every game. I’m lucky to have experienced a number of higher profile games, in the West Wales Cup, FAW Trophy as an assistant, likewise on Welsh league division one games and also being the man in the middle for Welsh League division three. I enjoy the standard of football and camaraderie associated with fellow officials at this level and see this being my next achievable step.”
By 2010 Rob would hope to be an official at the highest echelon of Welsh Football at Welsh Premier League level and then the perhaps scaling the heights as a FIFA official – where language is a barrier to all and sundry, but possibly not so much for himself!”
** Part of the information for this article came from an interview conducted by Jonathan Twigg with Rob Blowes for a referees’ magazine.