Gray elected new Clare referees’ chairman

At the annual general meeting of the Clare GAA Referees Association recently Down native Fergal Gray, a member of the Feakle club, was elected as the new chairman in succession to Ger Lyons, who had completed his three-year term. Clarecastle’s John Dolan is the new secretary.
Outgoing secretary Michael O’Regan, who is the group’s county board liaison officer, paid tribute to the many officials and their teams of umpires for their voluntary role in taking charge of 1,380 games in Clare last year. He welcomed the introduction of fitness assessment and the honouring of referees of county finals of 25 years previous. He said the appointment of untrained home referees continues to be a blight on the game.
Outgoing chairman Ger Lyons acknowledged the Clare GAA executive for their continued support. He stated a two-fold increase in the number of cases of verbal abuse (total 27) is unacceptable. Stating that the most successful clubs invariably are also the most disciplined, he urged all club executives and team managers to peruse the disciplinary reports in the annual convention booklet to get a good assessment of their disciplinary standing, as his association does twice-yearly, to gauge progress in this area.
County co-ordinator Ger Hoey stated the assessment of club referees would be a central item on the agenda for 2012, as well as ongoing in service training, which is mandatory for all serving referees. He urged more new referees to become involved at inter-county level, as this has a spin-off effect at club level in raising standards and the profile of referees.
The following were elected: chairman, Fergal Gray; vice-chairman, John Healy; secretary, John Dolan; assistant secretary/board liaison officer, Michael O’Regan; treasurer, Flan O’Reilly and county co-ordinator, Ger Hoey.