Understanding

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Rules and Regulations

South Central is part of England Hockey (EH) and therefore operates under the International Hockey Federation (FIH) rules, with any specific exceptions or changes implemented by EH and the Area League Management Committees (ALMCs).

When the official Rules from the FIH are changed or updated, they do not become the Rules that we use immediately. Sometimes there are experiments adopted at International or National level, sometimes they will apply throughout all levels. Usually the FIH will make these changes to apply from a specific date. It is then up to EH to adopt or adapt them and this is never done during the middle of a season. Usually any changes come into effect from September 1 of the year changes are brought in.

In addition, once EH has determined which updates will or won't be adopted, then the ALMCs for each Area meet to discuss what will apply to all hockey below National level. This means the hockey typically taking place within the eight Areas of EH and covers most hockey administered by South Central*. The ALMCs issue the hockey Regulations which covers both participation by clubs and umpires. Once both EH and the ALMCs have agreed the specific updates, guidance is issued to all clubs and umpires in the Area so everyone should be operating from the same set of Rules and Regulations from the same date.

This will mean that from time to time, you may see International or National League matches taking place with slightly different interpretations of Rules and Regulations. You should always wait for confirmation from your Area to understand what changes will be made at the level you umpire at. You can find the most up to date Rules and Regulations covering South Central hockey in the Resources area of this website.

*The above refers to hockey mainly played in Saturday and Sunday Leagues, plus most of the EH competitions. However, some tournaments, University midweek hockey and other specific or locally organised competitions such as Junior games may have their own Regulations with notable differences to the weekend standards. You should always check the relevant Regulations for the competition you are umpiring in.

How SCO Development fits in

Without going into huge amounts of detail around how EH is now structured, be aware that all Areas in EH have a specific remit to provide development for umpires taking neutral appointments and support for clubs in developing new umpires. The official Development Team is always headed up by a Lead Developer who can then ask however many people they want to support them in the delivery of umpire development. After that, currently, Areas are free to provide whatever additional support they deem necessary.

In South Central we have been able to keep a strong development team together and use much of the foundations that were in place already through the old County and Regional associations. In addition, we have strived to stay ahead of development for umpires by implementing activities such as the Monday Mixer, the club umpire 'Hit Squad' and other initiatives, including the resources we make available to you. We do collaborate with other Areas and NPUA to bring you the best opportunities we can, but if you move to a different part of the country and umpire with a different Area, there will be noticeable differences in some places around the support you receive and the standards required to progress.

The future ideal is to have the same resources and standards in place no matter where in England you umpire BUT this is a long-term vision and not going to happen overnight. Until then, we will continue to raise our own bar and support other Areas where we can in doing the same.

Access to coaching and assessing is an important part of helping to maintain umpiring standards. There is a broad split between what resources are available for neutrally appointed umpires and club umpires, with one-to-one development usually reserved for umpires taking neutral appointments*.

Apart from the Monday Mixer, one-to-one development is where most coaching and assessing happens in South Central, delivered through a team of volunteers who are either current or former umpires. Developers work under the guidance of the Lead Developer to ensure the experience of development in South Central is consistent and useful. Some developers operate as both coaches and assessors, some are just one or the other. It shouldn't make a difference who comes along to watch you - you should receive the same support and help. That said, we don't want 'identikit' developers either! Each person brings their own unique experiences and perspective to the work that we do and so just as elsewhere, you will probably 'click' better with some developers than others. You'll get the same messages no matter who sees you, but always with a personal flavour.

Coaching: in its best form, coaching is simply a conversation. It's designed to help you get better at analysing your own game and embedding thinking processes that help you get quicker and better at making in-game decisions. Generally, the newer to umpiring you are, the more directive the coaching will be (giving you foundational guidelines about what to do and when). As you progress, we encourage you to take more responsibility for having the tools to 'self-coach' and work through scenarios yourself, with regular 'check-ins' with the development team.

Assessing: an assessment is simply a score you achieve on a match, decided by the assessor in attendance. Assessors have some clear criteria to refer to when deciding your score (which is available to you too in the Improving section of this website). Some people talk in terms of 'pass or fail' for assessments, but ideally, you should see assessments as just a number on a scale that tells you where you're at right now and crucially what you need to demonstrate to get better numbers. For most significant promotions, we will want to see you more than once anyway, so it's never a question of being a single chance to get promoted.

*If you are a club umpire, your first port of call should be your Club Umpire Developer (CUD), but we know not all clubs have these. Club umpires are welcome to use the resources on this website, including attending the Monday Mixer sessions if you'd like. If you are the CUD for your club, or you would like to get umpire development going at your club, have a look at the Club Umpire Development page of this website.

Levels, Panels and Pathways

Levels: there are four levels of umpire qualifications currently recognised by England Hockey. They're quite broad in terms of understanding what matches you can umpire (more below - click each tab for info about that level).

Panels: neutral appointments start within L1A, so there are different panels within the levels to help umpires understand their progression and to help appointers understand who is ready for the tougher games when they come. Any panels are decided by the Area and are not uniform across all areas. You can be L1A and not take neutral appointments, but you cannot be assessed for higher qualifications without taking neutral appointments of some description.

Pathways: this term is used more generally to describe the routes through the various qualifications, for umpires that want this and are able to achieve the standards required at assessment. The standard pathway for umpires in England is to take neutral appointments through the Area, working through the panels in L1A and then L2, before nomination as a candidate for L3. Once at L3, NPUA (National Programme Umpires' Association) has further panels to navigate before elite umpiring and international opportunities.There is a slightly different pathway available to young umpires (under 23), although they can move through the 'traditional' route if they want to.

Transfers: it is possible to swap between Areas, or even organising bodies (national and international). We have good knowledge of what a qualification and experience in one Area or country means in England and South Central, but we will always assess you on a test game to see where you would be best placed in our part of the system.

Gender: we will usually ask you to specify whether you want to umpire women's, men's or both. This isn't because we feel one is easier or harder than the other, but because some umpires are naturally more suited to women's or men's hockey with their personal style. That doesn't mean you have to be restricted to one or the other either, but usually we find that most umpires have a preference and once you get to Level 2, the progression pathway can be different for both. Some umpires find it quicker to progress through women's hockey, particularly if they are looking for a Level 3 badge, but this shouldn't be taken to mean it's easier! Some umpires can't get a handle on successfully and competently umpiring women's hockey no matter how hard they try. It's not a different game or different rules, but it does require a difference in skill, particularly around management and communication. The best umpires have stretched themselves with both genders and we would encourage you to look at doing the same.

Appointments: how to work with us

Making appointments is a huge task for the different divisions that we cover, so we have a team of three heros for it! Find out more in Connecting.

If you are new to neutral appointments, we need to have a few things in place before we can appoint you:

1. You need to be a Gold member of England Hockey Officiating to get the most out of the system. There is a Silver level, but this is only for those who want to do a handful of appointed matches per season.

2. You need to be Level 1 Assessed at minimum, although that doesn't have to have been done in our Area. Umpires transferring from another Area or at a different level, or even another organisation, should get in touch to discuss their specific situation.

3. You need to tell us if you want to umpire mainly men's, women's or both, as well as where in the Area you are based.

4. We need to place you on a panel in the GMS system so that you show as available to be appointed. we can't do this until you have got in touch and got the bits above sorted.

5. You need to complete your availability calendar within GMS.

Be aware that by default you will not get appointed to any team that comes from your club if you belong to one. Occasionally we have to make exceptions to this, but it's only on a 'no other options' case-by-case basis.

Top Tip:

Add your appointer's mobile number to your phone for any last minute emergencies!

Your Availability - the 'Golden Rules'

Here are some golden rules for making the appointers' lives easier (and trust us when we say you do NOT want to annoy the appointers!):

1. Keep your availability up to date - at least three weeks in advance if not longer. Make sure you regularly check that what you've said still stands!

2. If you don't have an appointment notified, this doesn't mean the appointers haven't pencilled you in for something, so if you need to change your availability at short notice (within three weeks of the date), please get in touch with your appointer via email as well as on the GMS calendar. The details of who to contact can be found in the Connecting part of this website.

3. When completing your availability, there are a lot of unnecessary options you can pick with the calendar - please do NOT use the AM/PM options as this doesn't work the way you'd think and actually makes appointing more difficult. If you are or are not available all day, just tick Yes or No. If you have a specific time, event or other restriction on a given day, use the notes function to add in the detail - the appointers will pick it up more easily and use that information accordingly.

4. Please be aware that we will expect you to be able to reach your appointed match a minimum of 45 minutes before Centre Pass and be able to stay for teas and at least 45 minutes after your match so you can chat with your colleague and any coaches/players that have questions either side of the match. If you are unable to commit to this requirement regularly, then we need to understand why, as it's an important part of the umpiring role. We appreciate that sometimes umpiring has to fit around playing or other commitments and we will do what we can to accommodate but if you have to get to another commitment by a certain time, put this in your availability notes! Leaving your colleague wondering if you're turning up at all because you're not there until 15 minutes before the start, or leaving them stranded and alone after a match because you want to shoot off is not great umpiring unless everyone is aware that's a possibility.

In an ideal world, we will only appoint you to one match on any given day but sometimes we need to ask people to do a 'double-header' to cover all commitments. This is not the norm and we only ever ask if there's no other way to get appointments completed. If you do or do not want to do double-headers if needed, make sure the appointers know this and keep your notes up to date if you change that preference for any specific date.

5. When you receive an appointment, you should get in touch with your colleague and any developer who is attending to swap mobile numbers, confirm arrival times and begin the pre-match chat process. In reality, most people leave this bit until teams have confirmed then piggyback on the email sent out by the home club. This is fine! Be aware though that they are supposed to do this at least four days before the match and not all of them are especially precise with this, so feel free to let your appointer know if you haven't heard anything by two days beforehand. They should confirm times, venues and any directions or localised things to be aware of such as parking restrictions. They will also confirm teas and ask about dietary requirements. Make sure you specify if you have something that needs to be taken into account - allergies etc.

6. Sometimes last minute situations require things to be shuffled around. If your appointer needs you to go somewhere else during the days or even hours before your match they will always get in touch via phone and you always have a choice about whether you can do the change or not! If you've planned something around being in a specific place at a specific time, it's fine to say so.

7. If you have a situation on the day such as your colleague not turning up and you can't get hold of them, have a look at our 'Help I've...' section of the website for more on what to do.

Match Preparation Logistics

Getting ready to umpire any match at any level needs a certain amount of preparation, even though many of you may have first experienced umpiring through being handed a whistle and told to start the match!

In South Central, we'd like all umpires to think about their next match with a process that ensures you have everything you need to get out there with confidence and most importantly have fun with one of the best views of the game.

We have a simple five-step process that umpires of any level can follow:

*Team League Positions (if relevant): there are two schools of thought here - those who like to know what the relative positions of teams are within the league and therefore what, if anything, rides on the match they're umpiring; and those who don't want to know (or don't mind either way), preferring to turn up and umpire based on what they see on the day.

There's no right or wrong here - you should definitely only umpire based on what happens while you are holding a whistle, but it can also be beneficial to understand if one or both teams are feeling any additional pressure to produce a result in a particular match.

Ultimately, you decide from one week to the next whether league table or recent results info is going to be of use to you, or whether it's going to be a distraction. Of course, you can always change your mind about what you want to know from week to week as well. You're the umpire - you choose!

Alternative Involvement