WARRINGTON Town FC have teamed up with Warrington Referees Society in a bid to increase the number of qualified football officials in the town.

The club’s HG Driver Recruitment Stadium is now home to the Warrington Town Referees Academy (WTRA), providing an excellent training facility for referees of the future.

Academy Chairman Roy Naylor said: “Fifteen years ago Warrington Referees Society boasted a F.I.F.A referee, a football league referee and six referee assistants.

“Now we have four officials on the contributory league, that’s good, but with the potential and size of Warrington it’s not good enough.”

As a regular visitor to Warrington Town, Roy held talks with managing director Toby Macormac and the club’s secretary Chris Henshall, an Ex-Football League Assistant Referee, about using the football stadium as a base for the society.

Roy added: “Warrington Town had everything we needed.

“It has a football pitch, a 3G training facility and access to live football matches that we could analyse for learning purposes.

“The only thing that was missing was the next generation of referees, but with the facilities on offer it is now much easier to attract them.

“Thanks to Warrington Town we are now getting a higher level of retention of referees because they are enjoying it more, they are training for longer and they want better games, so they are now looking at promotion.

“Warrington Town’s input other than the use of the facilities has given this society an identity.

“Warrington Town recently made a statement of intent that they want to have Football League status within seven years.

“Well here at the Warrington Town Referees Academy we hope to also have that same status in refereeing terms, as some of the referees who are here now are showing real potential,” added Roy.

Their efforts have been recognised by the FA, who presented the prestigious National Refereeing Programme Development award to Paul Dawson, Chairman of the Warrington Junior Football League at the Liverpool County FA awards evening recently.