Just thought that a bit of a report from the discussions and decisions of the CERH Congress may be of interest.

Attendees – Spain, Portugal, Germany, Holland, Switzerland, France and England.

European League of Clubs – It was considered that because games could be played at any time, advantage could be gained by knowing the results of earlier games.

It was therefore decided that all games in the final round would be played at 20.00GMT.

Referees at European Championships – It is a rule that each Country must supply a Referee at any European Championships that they compete in. Unfortunately, this has not been the case with several countries including ourselves. It has now been decided that any Country not supplying a Referee will pay for a referee from another Country, usually the host Country.

A cap of 500 euros has been put on the cost.

Comment – On this point, I think, that we, the NRHA, must put aside some funds to pay for the flight of an English Referee for European Championships.

If none of our International Referees are available, for any reason, then that is another issue.

We must also, with a degree of urgency, get our Training and Development of Referees Programme up and running.

Derek – You put forward a superb plan for this when we did the New Rules Seminars at Peterborough, together, we must now get this into the structure.

It has got to be high on our agenda when we meet next week.

It is fairly obvious, when looking at the European programme below, that our 3 International Grade referees may not be able to attend all 5 Championships.

We, therefore, need more International Grade Referees as quickly as we can produce them or pay the consequences.

Ladies Under 19 European Championships – Germany proposed that the age limit for this competition is raised to Under 20. Amongst other reasons, it was to bring it in line with the men’s competitions. This was approved but only just, 4-3.

There were proposals from Spain which were mainly to do with other competitions that we do not get into the final stages of.

Next year’s European Championships will be taking place as follows :-

6-11 September Senior Men Wuppertal, Germany

20-23 October Ladies U20 Darmstadt, Germany

4-9 October U17 Men Northampton, England ( To be confirmed)

Sept/Oct U20 Men Viareggio, Italy ( Possible question on this one)

With the U17 Men, we cannot have the dates previously spoken about because the Senior Men’s event starts on the 6th September.

Keith Allen