We are delighted to announce that Allys Clipsham will be moving into the vacant Referee Development Manager position following Lindsey Robinson’s move to the national equivalent of her role at Football South. Football South CEO Chris Wright believes that Allys was the obvious choice for the role, “Allys has over a decade of experience as an active referee and has been supporting and coaching match officials for several years. She’s achieved positive results since joining Football South in her role working alongside Lindsey Robinson, and it’s a natural progression for Allys to takeover this role given the capability she’s demonstrated.” Allys joined Football South at the beginning of 2021, and she has further integrated herself into the footballing community. In this time, Allys has led and delivered various programmes including Soccer Sisters, Twilight League, match official coaching, and overall referee recruitment and development activities. 

Allys has thoroughly enjoyed her time as our Community Development Officer and has especially loved seeing young people getting on the pitch for the first time “We have run several programmes that have given girls their first chance to play, including Have a Go days and multi-sport days in Dunedin and South Canterbury, along with a new Girls only Skill Centre in Oamaru.” She has loved seeing the joy of playing spread, “Every session that someone goes away from smiling is a proud achievement.” 

Allys became a referee at the tender age of 14 and has refereed extensively both in the UK and in New Zealand. Her refereeing saw her chosen as an Olympic torchbearer for London 2012 and she was recently announced as New Zealand Football’s Assistant Referee of the Year. She intends to continue the great work that Lindsey has been doing within our region, “The aims within the regions are to have at least single point control on all thirteenth grade and above games within three years. To achieve this goal, we will need to recruit over 100 new referees.” Allys hopes to continue to show the community just how enjoyable refereeing is. Interested in becoming a referee? Contact Allys at Allys@footballsouth.co.nz or fill out a Referee Expression of Interest form.