Nine promising judges looked to grow their skill sets with a view to becoming Technical Officials (TO) in Vienna recently as part of EuroHockey’s ongoing officials education programmes.
Under the tutelage of Annie Hairsine and Leon Rutten, the group from across the continent came together for the two-day panel in tandem with the men’s EuroHockey Indoor Club Cup to look at various different scenarios that apply to being a TO.
The TO plays a key role as an intermediary between the pitch-side judges and the technical delegate as well as being the pitchisde point of contact between competing teams and the officials team, as Hairsine explains.
“The primary judging role is at the technical table. The Technical Official is a little bit more of a roaming role, working with the benches, the team managers, but also then supporting the tournament director as well.
“They have more responsibility [than the scoring and timing judges] to be working between people. So for the role, we’re probably looking at people that are outgoing, that are confident in communication, confident in engaging people.”
The course saw the TO group take in an experience-sharing session, a workshop on discipline, a number of sessions on how a technical official sets up for a tournament and then looked at their role within the tournament.
Hairsine and Rutten then set up various case studies and scenarios in the context of the ongoing tournament to see how the participants might handle the situation.
“We look at the various different skills they might be called upon to use and how that works with different teams or organisations at the tournament and how they interact with them” Hairsine explains of the key items on the agenda.
“We have been looking at their communication skills, both verbal and non-verbal, and how body language plays such an important role in that, particularly when you’re working across Europe or working internationally, you can’t always speak the language. So it’s more about body language.
“We are also looking at their interaction within the team, their participation, their engagement, but also we’ve deliberately set up some scenario exercises.
“So we’re looking for their leadership skills and how they’re communicating within that.”
Each participant has already attended numerous tournaments as a judge with many taking on the TO role for certain games within events.
Usually, within those settings, they have picked up high recommendations in the TD’s post-event marking system to advance to the next step on the officials ladder.
Rutten adds: “Being a TO, you’re more the spider in the web between not only the teams, your own team, but also the television, livestream, media.
“And that’s what we’re trying to reach with them. That you do more work together and deliver together between them. And these are some talented people who can make that step!”
Among the group are Diana Soussi from Gibraltar and Benedict Spermoser from Germany who gave their thoughts on the course and its value to their journey in officialdom.
For Soussi, she is a former president of Gibraltar Hockey who has also coached and judged at international level and she felt the TO course offered a healthy environment to grow her skill-set.
“We got to discuss certain scenarios that happen during competition with other colleagues who have experienced something similar or, even if it’s different, you can get some reassurance of how you are meant to be doing things, whether there are more than one way of dealing with a situation.
“It was an interesting way to expand our knowledge.
Spermoser added: “It’s always good when you do the practical exercise of analysing another match and another TO’s way of handling a match because it gives you a perspective of watching it from the outside.
“Would I have acted in the same way or would I have done something differently? It’s a great opportunity to do this in a calm environment and being able to analyse what somebody else does.”
On the role of the TO, Soussi adds it is a step change from the judge’s role: “As a judge, you’ve got a smaller focus than a TO who has a much wider area of things that you’re looking at. You have a bigger view and a complete overview.
“The TO is probably the one who has the most interactions with the coaches and the managers.
Spermoser adds that body language is key: “Normally you would try and be approachable, but at the same time making sure that everything is following the right behaviour that you expect during the matches.
“You’re basically the person standing there who can calm the situation down and, at the same time, control situations. Your presence is like an extension of what the judges want.
“Practically, you are a team where one has a behind-the-desk role and the other one has a forefront role during a match. Kind of like a maitre d’ or something like that, you know, and managing the expectations of your customers!”
For both, their pathways to this stage have been different with Spermoser working his way through the German system before progressing through the EuroHockey route.
He hopes to advance and become a TD in the future while for Soussi she is taking each event as it comes.
“From my perspective, it’s very much I’m enjoying what I’m doing so far,” she says. “So, if it takes me all the way to TD, fantastic. If TO is where I stay, then it’s just as good.
“As long as I’m enjoying what I’m doing and I’m learning and growing during the process, then let it be what it be.”
“In Gibraltar, obviously, because competition is much more scarce than what is in Germany or any other big European country, we don’t get that much.
“So, you have to take the development platform from EuroHockey as much as you can to help you grow and take that into Gibraltar. The biggest take on that is hopefully having more people in Gibraltar wanting to take on this educational path and offer more opportunities to those people in Gibraltar as neutral judges and TOs or TDs in the future.
Spermoser concludes: “It’s been a really, really nice course. There’s a lot of learning within it and I totally encourage people to join in and take the opportunity if it comes their way.”
