Ref Roberts makes the grade at Iber Cup

George Roberts, second right, with his fellow refs

The 18-year-old was selected as one of four North Riding County FA officials to head over to take up the whistle at the junior football tournament, which attracted top teams, from under-nines to under-16s, such as Inter and PSG.

Roberts, who works for the family business, G Roberts Funeral Directors on Sherwood Street, said: “All the games in which I refereed or ran the line were watched by assessors from FIFA, the Premier League and the Football League, and I earned either standard or above standard marks for all my matches, which was great news.”

The North Riding County FA put Roberts forward for the the Iber Cup and he has relished the chance to be involved in games in such a high-quality event.

He said: “After flying in on the Monday I ran the line of the Montreal Impact (Canada) v SF Damainse (Portugal) under-15s game, and then I ran the line for the Sockers FC Chacago under-15s clash with CD Feirense and we all then headed to the opening ceremony of the tournament.”

Wednesday saw George take charge of his first game, Sockers FC v SC Lourel (Portugal.

He said: “This was a good game and afterwards I had chance to look at the game as the County FA iPads had been used to video the action.

“This gave me an excellent chance to assess my own performance.”

The Scarborough youngster then reffed his second game the following day between Mocidade (Portugal) under-13s v Sandton Park (South Africa).

He added: “I then ran the line in Friday’s game between Academy Malabo from Equatorial Guinea when they beat Marinhense (Portugal) in an under-14s game. Malabo were the best team I reffed they were very strong and won on penalties.”

Following another game on the line, Roberts capped his tournament by refereeing the under-14s semi-final between Portoguese rivals SC Lourel and CAC Pontinha.