Daughters and Dads Referees
At Newcastle City Touch, we love to have families involved in our club. We have lots of parents volunteering to manage or coach the teams of their kids or famililes playing touch together in our mixed competitions. We are keen to see this continue further into parents and their kids developing as referees together.
Why just Daughters and Dads?
Of course, we are more than happy to have any parent/child combination referee at our club. However, we are specifically promoting to Daughters and Dads who may have participated in the DADEE program and are looking for more ways to keep active together.
Are there many female touch referees?
Touch football is a very inclusive sport and actively encourages women to participate. As an indication, the 2022 Peter Wilson Memorial Championships at Nelson Bay had over 100 referees with 40% being female.
Why do this?
Anyone with teenage kids will know that they are challenging years for them and for you as parents. Participating in things together is a great way to build confidence and keep a strong connection with your daughter. If your daughter wants to earn good money and keep active, then touch football refereeing is a great way to do this together.
Here is a comment from one of our dads who has refereed at tournaments with his daughter:
Travelling to a tournament is like a good, old-fashioned road trip. We listen to each other’s music (mine good, her’s not so) and chat about random things. The weekends are a great mix of being active and just hanging out together. With the rest of our lives so busy, it is fantastic to spend time as just the two of us. An all-round rewarding experience… and we get paid to do it!
How do I start?
To start becoming a referee, you need to complete a Level 1 Referee course. Anyone who is at least 12 years of age can register for a Level 1 Referee course. No refereeing experience is required but if you know a few of the basics about touch football, that would help.
See our main Referees page for details on our next Level 1 course. Registration is essential so follow the instructions on the page.
What happens next?
Depending on your age and experience, after you have completed the Level 1 Referee course we can get you both refereeing in our social competitions. For some, this might be as far as you want to go.
If you want to develop further, after 12 months you can do a Level 2 Referee course and progress to refereeing at representative tournaments. Further development through the levels (3, 4, 5 and 6) is possible through increased experience. Who knows – you could be the first Daughter and Dad to referee together at a Touch World Cup!