So how are thanks for coming into our talk to us today. I think we should probably start off with the beginning.

How did you get into refereeing and how did you first decide you wanted to be a referee?

I hate anybody to think that when I was 7 or 8 I had this long held ambition to be a football referee. I don't think anybody at that age does and if they do then it's kind of strange isn't it.

Like so many other kids, thousands and thousands up and down the country. I was an aspiring footballer, wanted to be a professional footballer. I was more crazy watching and playing.

And just genuinely thought I had what it took, like so many kids I guess, and looking back clearly I didn't, I was miles away.

But that's what I wanted to be in. I tried hard, I tried hard to develop my skills locally in this school team, the regional team, rather a boys team if you like, live up in South York, and still doing.

And on a Sunday team as well. I had become aware of the refereeing side of the game from my dad because he had become a referee himself when he was in his early 30s he had been a bit of a local player and became a player manager and the referee sometimes wouldn't arrive or attend or wouldn't be appointed to the game.

And he had a local stuff so they were short of match officials and he'd step in and take charge of the game because somebody had to when he quite enjoyed it, he's got a booming voice, a big personality.

And he quite enjoyed the idea of being a referee so he took it up, got qualified. So when I was like in my early teens he was still refening.

Now obviously I'd gone watching him now and again but I didn't want to be a ref and it was only when it was obvious I wasn't going to be a footballer when he came to me and said look we've got a course coming up locally to qualify some more people as referees, defancy, you know, and if you could, we know we're short of refs and maybe you'd be okay at it.

But first I was resistant and you know in my mind's eye referees were the world bold old men just like what I am now in it.

I come in but I was 18, 17, 18 at the time and I can distinctly remember thinking it might be nice to have some younger people involved.

I might stand out because I'm a bit younger than the norm. This was in the late 1980s and I said go on then I'll give it a go.

So me and a guy from school went down to the course, six week course which we passed I think the 19th of December 1989 was the day when I passed my first ever exam which qualified me as a ref and I'd never ever blown a whistle in my life.

It's a bit like, it's a bit like giving you a driving license just because you know the highway code.

I had no practical ref in and I took charge of my first game a few weeks later and I'm looking back you know to that 19th of December 1989 if somebody has said to me you know you're going to go on and take charge of a World Cup final I felt the way it was.

I mean obviously somebody was going to go on and do that game but it turned out to be me.

So you know through there's amazing ways to do amazing things in this sport even if you don't have that God given talent that you need to be a professional footballer.

And when you first started out, presumably you started out local leagues and made your way through the levels.

Was it, I mean because I'm interested to know because when a football player, if I talk to a football player and they tell me I always say to them was it obvious from the beginning you were much better than everyone else and they always say yes.

But with refereeing I imagine it's a bit more nuance than that. It's a bit more about experience and about authority and about learning your way through it.

So did you find that you made quite a lot of mistakes early on and you worked your way through and that way or was it a case of fitness and keeping up and keeping authority and that sort of thing.

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