TWO members of the Alton Referees Association, Malcolm Henderson and Reg Pullen, were presented recently, with mementos from the Football Association for more than 50 years service to football.

Malcolm Henderson started his career in refereeing in 1967 when he completed his Class referee examination. He was promoted to Class 2 in 1969 and to Class1 in 1971. From 1967 to 1986 Malcolm officiated in the I Zingari Football League, Liverpool Business House Football League and Liverpool and District Sunday Football League. In 1970 he became assistant development manager at Liverpool FC before becoming commercial manager and assistant secretary at Oldham FC in 1973.

He has worked for the Saudi Arabian Football Federation and upon his return to the UK officiated on the Northern Premier Football League. Additionally, he has officiated on the Leicestershire Senior and Combination Football League and many others. He became an FA Tutor and FA Observer and today serves as Alton’s representative on the Hampshire County Referees’ Association and is a council member of the Aldershot Divisional FA where he is the local area referees’ secretary.

Reg Pullen began his career in football initially as a player for the ‘Moonrakers’ team in the Salisbury and District Football League; but without a regular place in the team took up the whistle, passing out in November 1965. His first match as a football referee was played at Netheravon Army Camp on Saturday, December 5, 1965.

He refereed in Wiltshire until 1980 when he moved with employment to Dunstable, Bedfordshire, where he continued his refereeing in both the Luton and District Football League and the South Midlands Football League. In another employment move in 1990 he came to Hampshire and registered with Hampshire Football Association.

Reg then refereed in the Aldershot Saturday and Farnham Sunday Football Leagues as well as the Wessex Football League, before retiring from active refereeing at the end of the 2005/2006 season having completed 40 years in the middle.

Reg has been involved in various committees within the football fraternity of Hampshire since 1995 and became an FA referee tutor in 1996 - a post he still enjoys to this day.

He has always been involved behind the scenes helping referees on one committee or other and today is the National Referees’ Association’s treasurer besides being the Hampshire County Referees’ Association secretary and treasurer.

Reg said: “We have seen the facets of football change so much over the years with tweaks to the offside law, the introduction of substitutes, red and yellow cards and more recently the introduction of the video referee assistant; just to name a few. Oh! How times have changed, some for the better and a few are worse, especially the amount of verbal from players that today’s referees have to tolerate even from an early age when starting their careers at 14 years old.”

Clocking over 100 years between them the Alton pair were presented with their awards by Neil Cassar, FA council member and chief executive of Hampshire Football Association.