In the interests of safety, the club will now be adopting a no tackling from behind policy.  The current WFA rules state that a ball can be pinched from between the legs if no contact is made.  We feel this rule is a little ambiguous and may result in injuries so we have decided to remove this rule. NB, that doesn’t mean you can constantly back into players calling for fouls, if this is the case the foul would go to the other player.

Also in this interests of safety, but this time to our neighbours! If players are seen to be unnecessarily smashing the ball with all their might, just outside the area in order to score a goal and the ball goes over the fence, then this will result in a straight blue card (AT BEECHCROFT ONLY).  We feel there is no need to hammer the ball in these situations and that generally a passed finish is what players should be striving to achieve. Obviously we understand that no one does this intentionally but we feel action is necessary to preserve the safety of the neighbours and also potential injuries to the poor, generally reluctant, ‘goalkeeper’ that stands there for 5 minutes waiting to come back out again!  Please note that this also refers to warm ups prior to games.

In every instance this is at the referee’s discretion and his decision is final.  On the subject of referees, I would like to take this opportunity to ask for all of your assistance in supporting a number of new referees that we are currently training.  This is not an easy job and it is probably more difficult to referee walking football than any form of the standard game due to the ambiguous nature of the walking/running conundrum that all walking football referee’s face.  I would ask for your patience and support towards them when you are in sessions because without these individuals the sessions do not take place.