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Ray Holyer visited Rome during the weekend of Nov 19-21 2004, where he stayed in the Hotel Bonus Paster in the Vatican City, to run the ECC Introductory Umpiring Course.

15 keen umpires attended (but, alas, no Pope) and treated Ray to 2 long days in the classroom, teaching them the laws and umpiring techniques. Although, the ECC’s aim is to start the course on the Friday evening this was not possible here because of the long distances involved in getting the umpires to Rome. This meant that the course was condensed into 1.5 days – a feat that required hard work on everyone’s part. The 15 attendees varied in experience from well seasoned umpires to some who where just starting out on the road of officialdom.

The highlight of the weekend was the Scoring exercise where the umpires quickly learnt how difficult it is to score a game and how important it is to work as a team with the Scorers. Ray’s biggest problem was the lack of English speaking students and the work had to be translated as he went along. The major source of help here was the course content that is presented in a visual format i.e. as many photos as possible are used to explain the laws. Ray’s other headache was how to fit in 15 exams during Sunday afternoon. Despite making a mammoth effort he only managed 14 exams before he had to leave for home. The final examinee will take the exam at the next course in the new year.

Following the results of these exams it is hoped to run the next level course (ECC/ACU&S GL6 Part 1) before the start of next season. This will then bring Italy’s umpires into line with other European countries, several of whom have ECC qualifications under their belts.