In addition to her role as a football player for Whanganui Marist, Tash Thorpe has discovered a deep passion for refereeing, entering her third season as a match official. With nearly 50 matches under her belt, Tash is determined to advance her career in officiating. The year 2024 proved to be a significant milestone for Tash, as she was selected to join the National Women's League Panel and participated in the National Women's Referee Development Academy in Nelson. Looking ahead to the 2025 season, Tash has made the decision to prioritize her refereeing duties over playing. We eagerly anticipate tracking Tash's journey as she pursues her dream of becoming a FIFA official and officiating matches on a global scale.

We got the chance to sit down with Tash and find out how she got into officiating, what challenges she has had to overcome and her advice to any females looking to get invovled...

Q: When and how did your officiating journey begin? 
Most Saturdays during football season I would be at Wembley Park from 8:30am right through until 5pm or later. During the morning games I was coaching a range of age groups playing in two school teams as well as two club teams. Being a kaiako (a teacher) I could see the number of ākonga (students) that had a love for the sport and were out on the field playing football every lunch break.

Finding whanau (family) to voluntarily coach the tamariki (children) was tricky because they were either unfamiliar with the sport, which meant they lacked confidence with the rules, or they had other commitments preventing them from consistently being at trainings and games. Having such a love for playing football myself, the last thing I wanted to do was to see these talented young players miss out, so I took them all under my wing.  

This was when I first started to referee games. Coaches of other teams were happy to referee half a game each and I must admit, the first week I didn’t even have a whistle, so I just used my ‘teacher voice’ to communicate with the players.  

After the junior rounds were complete, I would head over to the adult fields and either play the first round and watch the second round or vice versa. With such a shortage of referees in the Whanganui community, the men’s games were generally all covered most weeks, but often the women’s games were not. The captain of WCFC women’s 1^st XI called out, ‘hey Tash, since you aren’t playing, do you want to referee our game for us?’ and that is where my refereeing journey began. 

Q: What challenges have you had to overcome to become successful in our game? 
One of the biggest challenges I think I had to overcome was the players and spectators being very competitive and also very vocal. I know that most footballers and also football fans can be very passionate about the game. It doesn’t matter if it is a casual pre-season game, a local league game, a central league game or any levels above this, there will always be comments from players, coaches, managers and/or spectators on the sideline.

I guess that I have learnt along the way how to set my expectations from the start, keep everyone in check throughout the game and have the confidence to back my calls no matter what I hear from others.

It is also really important, especially if you referee the same teams on a regular basis, to start each game fresh. Do not hold grudges from previous matches. Usually the players that are quite vocal throughout, apologise at the end of the game and thank you for doing such a great job. 

Q: What advice would you give females looking to get into officiating? 
Give it a go! You’ll never realise how enjoyable it can be until you give it a go! 

I set multiple goals as a youngster right through to my adult years of playing football. The pathways that exist now to progress through the different levels in women’s football weren’t well established when I was playing so I made it no further than Whanganui and Manawatu with playing. The pathways for refereeing have meant that even though I have only been a part of it for three years, I have already refereed in Whanganui, Palmerston North, Feilding, Wellington, Napier and Nelson. 

Advice from me would be, go out there with confidence! It doesn’t matter if you are refereeing girls, boys, women or men, if you step onto the pitch lacking confidence you will find it difficult to make calls and even more challenging to back up why you have made that call if it is questioned. 

Another tip, start off the game with a bit of a korero (a chat) about your expectations so that not only you, but also both teams are on the same page. Be vocal throughout the game, this comes in very handy if you get to the level of games where comms with Assistant Referees (AR’s) are used because it has now become a habit for you to use the referees’ terms such as saying, ‘play, play, play’, ‘blue, blue, blue’, ‘goal kick’, ‘corner’ etc. Being a talkative referee throughout the game, especially if you are in the middle on your own also allows the players to realise that yes, you are there and yes, you have seen what they would usually yell or protest about.  

Praise great shots at goal, praise great saves by keepers, praise awesome foot skills and team work. You may not realise it, but if you make positive comments, the players will keep their own communication on the field positive too.  

Q: You must have had some really cool moments in your career, do you have a standout moment that you won’t ever forget? 
There are definitely a few awesome moments that have occurred throughout the refereeing career so far.  

In 2023, New Zealand hosted the FIFA Women’s World Cup. A small bunch of female referees of all levels were selected to attend a meet and greet with FIFA qualified referees and AR’s and I was lucky enough the be one of the women chosen. We had a lovely dinner with them and were given the opportunity to ask them how they got to where they are today and what tips they had to offer. This was followed by watching them referee and assistant ref the Ford Football Ferns vs Vietnam. This moment was when I realised that all top referees started from where I was at that point, a local league referee, and any of us are capable of reaching games of that level if we put our minds to it. 

Another standout moment would have to be attending the RDA down in Nelson. We not only got to referee the top 30 schools in New Zealand at tournament week, but we also got assessed and tutored throughout the week by three females that have refereed at The Olympics and The World Cup. This was an amazing opportunity; it really opened my eyes to what is out there in the big wide world of football. These games were also videoed and televised which was an awesome learning opportunity, being able to see where I was running on the field and take into consideration where I could have or should have been for better angles of play. 

Q: What would you like to see football look like in NZ in the next 5 years? 
The next 5 years, wow, that’s scary to think as far forward as 2030!  

It has been awesome to see the growing number of football fans this past season now that the Wellington Phoenix has been joined by another New Zealand team, Auckland FC, playing in the same division as them.

Young players being exposed to more New Zealand players making careers out of football will hopefully motivate more young players to take up football. It would be great to see all levels of football in New Zealand grow from grassroots level all the way up to international level.

Women’s football is yet to be as popular as men’s when it comes to the number of spectators attending games. It would be awesome to see growth in the support of women’s football throughout New Zealand.

Article added: Thursday 13 March 2025