Hampshire FA’s Discipline Manager, Debbie Sowton, was given the opportunity to officiate a game at the home of the English Football 

Back in October, all County FA’s were advised that the County FA with the biggest percentage of players registered on the Whole Game System would be given an opportunity to play at Wembley. 

Devon FA and East Riding FA won the opportunity to take 22 members of staff to Wembley on Saturday 18th November to play 90 minutes on the legendary pitch. 

The FA also rewarded the following County FAs for their hard work in increasing registration numbers by giving them the opportunity to supply one qualified member of staff to be a match official for the event;

• West Riding FA – Lee Maran
• Norfolk FA – Matt Carpenter & Daryl Godbold
• Essex FA – Lukas Wood
• Hampshire FA – Debbie Sowton 

'We arrived at the main club Wembley entrance at 2pm and was given a guided tour of the stadium, including a visit to the Royal Box where we had our photos taken with The FA Cup. We then proceeded to the changing areas and we were allowed onto the main pitch to walk around and take photos.

The teams and officials lined up ready to commence the match/es and we left the tunnel and entered the pitch to complete the respect handshake.

The match was played as follows - 15 minutes of walking football and 30 minutes of 11 V 11 which was repeated in the second half. I acted as 4th Official for the first half and had the pleasure of stepping onto the hallow turf to officiate the 2nd 15 minutes of walking football in the 2nd half, this was just right for me as I can no longer run as I did when I qualified in 1989.

The whole afternoon was just a surreal experience and one that I never imagined that I would ever experience.’

Debbie would like to thank Hampshire FA’s CEO, Neil Cassar, for the opportunity to attend.