A shortage of men in black is causing headaches for the organisers of the Colchester Sunday League.

They are suffering from a lack of referees, which is leading to the cancellation of some Sunday morning games.

And they are appealing for anyone who wants to take on the task to join a course in January.

If there is no referee for a match then both teams have to agree to someone from the sidelines to officiate.

And sometimes there is no agreement and the match has to be postponed, which leads to a fixture backlog at the end of the season.

The League's referees appointment secretary Terry Thacker has never seen it so bad: "I have been doing this for ten years and I can't remember ever having such a shortage of referees.

"It is a problem on a regular basis. Almost every week we are short of eight or nine referees.

"We usually have 32 games in the six divisions. We try and spread the referees throughout all the divisions but we come up short.

"We then have to leave it to the individual teams to try and sort someone out for the game.

"Sometimes it just doesn't happen. Games get cancelled and have to be played at a later date which doesn't help. You then get a build-up at the end of the season, which causes problems for the fixture secretary and we still do not have enough referees to cope."

The problem has only started to become a problem in the last year as the number of referees has taken a sharp dip.

Terry Thacker said: "It started to deteriorate at the end of last season. Some of the older referees were retiring and there weren't any young ones coming through.

"They seem to be going in to youth football rather than the adult game."

Terry is hoping that a referees course run by the Essex County Football Association will attract new recruits.

He said: "We have four people booked at the moment but we have space for 30.

"If we don't get more than six on the course then it will be cancelled but we tend to get that number."

The second course of the season for aspiring referees, which starts on Monday, January 10, will run for 11 consecutive Monday evenings.

The course, costing £38, begins on January 10 at the Methodist Church, Highwood, at 7.45pm.

All aspects of the laws of the game will be covered, as well as other general refereeing items.

Anyone (male or female) over the age of 14 who is physically fit and interested in becoming a referee should contact the Society's Coaching Officer, Terry Thacker on 01206 824712 for further details.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.