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How to Recruit Young Umpires? DofE Initiative

young umpires in pink

DofE Initiative - Umpire Skill

Rugby & East Warwickshire HC have trialed a new approach to encouraging younger players to pick up a whistle for the first time. You may be aware of the Duke of Edinburgh scheme which encourages youngsters to develop new talents and essential skills. They will often start their Bronze Award journey aged 13-14 and is managed by their school.

The children are required to complete an activity for an hour a week for thirteen weeks to cover an Activity, Volunteering, and a Skill. By building a programme based around umpiring, the children complete the Skill requirement whilst learning more about the game.

The programme at Rugby is quite simple:

  • Each Friday, Rugby hosts Friday Night Juniors which teaches children from age of 5 how to play hockey. As the ages are separated it creates sessions that allow young umpires to learn about umpiring during one of the age group matches.
  • The 60 minutes is split into sections
    • 0-10 minutes – a Q&A from their previous week matches for club or school and scenarios that they wanted to understand more of the decision
    • 10-25 minutes – a new scenario/set of rules to build their knowledge
    • 25-40 minutes – how can the players use the rules and application to their advantage when playing – the Do’s and Don’ts
    • 40-60 minutes – game time. We use 4-way headsets for that the players get used to communicating with the other umpire and the players. This helps to build their confidence
  • The key with anything like this is to make it fun so that they stay interested and engaged. Although we are only into our third week, the children seem happy with the format.

There is no guarantee that they will take umpiring further and become qualified but having a grounding is at least a step towards this goal.

If you want to know any more about any of the approach taken at Rugby & East Warwickshire HC then feel free to get in touch directly with Chris Carr and he can elaborate further.


Find more information about Rugby & East Warwickshire HC on their website