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We spoke with match officials Kevin Kim, Matthew Hawkins and Gee Vivek, as well as coaches Whayne Sharp and Lowell Williamson as they look forward to what’s to come.

Why do you get up on a Sunday morning and travel to training?

Hawkins: I’m committed to my craft; I love the game. Any practice I can get is extremely valuable and these sessions are very helpful for myself and our referees.

Kim: We have these resources from League1, including the instructors and volunteers who come out and help us. We all definitely want to continue to learn and get better.

Vivek: Not a lot of people get this opportunity, so using the training that we get, we can better our refereeing skills and also improve fitness. Hopefully, I can use this to better my craft when I referee games in the summer.

What are your current goals within refereeing and League1 itself?

Kim: I’ve been enjoying being part of League1 for a long time. Everyone should have a goal and my next steps should be making the step up from my current level, and continue to improve in the league.

Vivek: I want to be more comfortable refereeing a men’s game in the middle; I want to get that challenge and keep refereeing in League1. There’s a lot of wonderful colleagues to learn from, so getting to know how everyone referees can help me better my own style of refereeing.

Hawkins: In the short term, my goal for this year is to keep moving into the middle a bit more. Becoming a FIFA-qualified referee is my long-term goal; I’m still pretty young so I’m going to put a lot of time into it and keep working towards that.

What does it feel like getting up and coming to help the League1 referees prepare for the 2024 season?

Sharp: Getting up in the morning for a trip like this is really easy, because the enthusiasm and the energy from the participants makes me enthused and energized about coming out here and making them better referees.

Williamson: It’s an easy ask. We’re laying the groundwork and the foundation for what will happen later in the season. We’re doing our preparation now ready for execution as we go along. We’re really thankful for the time to use the facilities and the enthusiasm from the referees has been fantastic. It’s been a really positive experience.