Lou Stephenson receives FA Referees Long Service Award

Lou Stephenson has recently retired as a FA Tutor, having served the Hampshire FA and Portsmouth Referees Society in this role for over 31 years. At the January meeting of the Portsmouth Referees Society, Nick Taplin presented Lou with an FA Referees Long Service Award to mark his service to Referee Instruction.

In his time referee coaching, Lou, a former Southern League Match Official, has trained over 1000 new referees in the Portsmouth area, and been active in many in service events, including the "Portsmouth Roadshow" who were famous in the 1980's and early1990's, presenting training evenings across Hampshire and the South of England.

Lou commented that he had enjoyed every minute of his time coaching and it gave him great pride when he watched referees he had taught progress up the refereeing ladder.