AVON Youth League’s management have enthusiastically embraced a revolutionary purple shirt plan for aspiring referees – and more youth competitions across the area are set to follow suit, writes Simon Parkinson.

The famous and popular local league serving Bristol and neighbouring counties, set up in England’s World Cup winning year 1966, has adopted an idea first arising from Cheltenham Youth League which, after lengthy discussion amongst its own concerned officers about the poor treatment of young refs by disrespectful spectators within its own parameters, unveiled the scheme at the start of this season.

The pilot has already been branded a “big success” in and around north Gloucestershire as supporters of the young people’s game can now clearly identify an under-18 official, sporting a purple shirt instead of traditional black attire, as a refereeing prodigy and “respond appropriately.”

Avon Youth League provides the stage for more than 5,000 mad-keen footballers aged between 11 and 16 battling it out across 26 divisions on Sunday afternoons.

Gloucestershire FA referee development officer Roger Vaughan acknowledged: “The Cheltenham Youth League came up with the idea to use purple shirts for their under-18 referees with a view to easily identifying them as part of a drive to improve behaviour linked to the Respect Programme in their league.

“The Avon Youth League has taken on the initiative and provided all their under-18 officials with similar purple shirts.

“I am looking to roll out the initiative with all other youth leagues across the county by meeting them halfway on the cost of coloured shirts for their under-18s.

“In addition we will be highlighting why we are doing this as the evidence from Cheltenham is that the cases of abuse, and issues for young referees, have reduced since the introduction of the shirts.

“We will be combining this with more courses to train more mentors to support our younger and inexperienced referees, and increase their confidence and ability to continue refereeing for longer.

“This has been supported by Steve Tanner, the FA national referee manager, who has taken up this initiative to roll out nationally in tandem with the FA who have provided a pot of money for all counties to support similar schemes across the country.”

Avon Youth League is far from fresh to the safeguarding and protection of its young participants.

A statement on its website - www.avonyl.co.uk – reads: “In more recent years the league was at the forefront of the fight to protect young people from abuse in any of its forms, within youth sport in particular, and youth groups in general.

“The fight against undesirable individuals within youth sport and inappropriate behaviour was launched in conjunction with the Avon & Somerset Police Child Protection team.

“The league actively campaigned for all youth groups to operate in accordance with the principals of the force’s Child-Safe initiative.”