As we prepare for this weekend's round of football, next week is a week that holds a lot more significance and one that many take for granted.
Without umpires, there is no game. And they're not going to get every decision right, umpires are human and make mistakes, just like those kicking the pig skin around the field. However for some reason, umpires cop the most criticism than most when more often than not, they are required to make a split second decision.
On Monday, the Australian Football League will celebrate Community Umpiring Week with the aim to encourage people to get involved in umpiring Australian Football at the community level.
Community Umpiring Week highlights the integral role umpires play at all levels of the grame, encourages people to consider getting into umpiring and promotes the important of respect for umpires.
Director of Umpiring Glenn Emery says that the rate of new umpires coming into the Southern Football Netball League has jumped significantly in the last two years.
"We've got 320 umpires registered for this season, that's 34% up from last season and a further 16% up on the year before.
"I think we're growing as big as any league in Victoria at the moment. We've covered all our games this season, and we've grown so much that we're able to cover the Division 4 reserves and boundary, and we're also covering eight of the 16 ladies games,"
The theme behind Community Umpire Round is to encourage more people to give umpiring a go and Emery states that not only do you enhance your skills as an umpire, but also enhance your skills as a person.
"Everyone thinks that Aussie Rules is an easy game to umpire but it really isn't.
"We have professionals that are involved in our training program, for the fitness aspect of it, that you would normally have to pay around $60 a week at your local gym, and you get that for nothing in our program.
"All aspects of umpiring are trained by professionals that we have employed. We have social events, we have a great mix of ages with our youngest umpire being 13 years of age and our oldest is 75 years of age.
"The program also teaches, especially young people, public speaking abilities, you're effectively managing a group of footballers out on the ground, and you're developing a lot of your life skills while out on the football ground,"
