Port Lincoln umpire Michael Blewit notched up another milestone at the South Australian Country Championships at the weekend, officiating his 1100th game of football.
Blewit reached the milestone in his seventh appearance at the country championships, in the match between Western and Eastern on Sunday.
Following the match the umpires commemorated the milestone by presenting Blewit with the match ball signed by them.
Blewit said he kept count of the matches he officiated but was still surprised to reach 1100.
He said what kept him coming back to umpire each year was a “the love of the game and being involved, and the different people you meet.”
Blewit started umpiring in 1983 with a match between Marble Range and Mallee Park at Wangary.
He started umpiring after he retired from playing football with Wayback’s under 18 team but wanted to stay involved with football.
Since then he has gone on to umpire many more games in the Port Lincoln Football League and Mortlock Shield, as well as one All Australian Country Championships at Wagga Wagga in 2000.
Blewit received recognition this year at the Mortlock Shield when he was awarded the Michael Hegarty Medal for umpire of the carnival.
The medal led to him being the only Western Zone umpire at this year’s championships.
Blewit said umpires had to “step up” when umpiring the country championships.
“You’ve got your club games then you strive to go to the Mortlock Shield, then you’ve got the country championships, which is a level up again,” he said.
The Port Lincoln Football League has seen changes in the last 34 years with the amount of people umpiring.
Blewit said when he started in the early 1980s there were good numbers.
“We had to fight for our spot in the A grade,” he said.
He said numbers started to drop off in the late 1990s but this year was a good one with at least four new people signing up.
As for the future, Blewit will not be hanging up the whistle anytime soon.
He said it had been easier on local umpires ever since the league moved to a three umpire setup for matches.
He said he had joked about aiming for 1500 but he does have an idea of when he would step aside.
“I don’t see myself going at 70,” he said.
“I see myself going into my 60s, so another 10 years.”
Blewit is also hoping to see more young people decide to become umpires and officiate league matches.
“I want to be able to mentor the new ones,” he said.
“Jack Waller is one of the ones I mentor, he’s going to be great.”
For those who want to umpire and do it for as long as he has, Blewit recommended they “just enjoy it.”
“You have good camaraderie with the other guys, we class ourselves as the seventh team in the league because we are a team,” he said.
“We support each other and you have the best seat in the house.”
With the country championships behind him, Blewit will be back to umpiring the Port Lincoln Football League this weekend, on his way to another milestone in the future.
