WOOFFERTON secretary Dave Thomas says something needs to be done urgently to solve the refereeing shortage in the Herefordshire FA County League.

Matters came to a head on Saturday when the Blues and Hereford City were left without a man in the middle for their Division One clash.

A referee was also unavailable in the match between Wellington Colts and Kington Town Reserves, resulting in managers from both sides officiating for 45 minutes each.

"We had an email saying there was no ref but I only saw that when I got home," said Thomas.

"I have been involved in football in 30 years and I've never heard of a ref not being available.

"You sometimes have mistakes where two refs turn up for the same game, but this must be a first.

"I think it just needs highlighting."

HFA chief executive Jim Lambert has confirmed that the issue is being addressed and is hopeful there will be no problems this weekend.

“Without doubt, it is not good," he said.

"We do have a shortage of referees, quite a few are now at a higher level which depletes our pool but at the moment, we do have a number of officials closing dates.

"Out of 90 odd referees, 19 or 20 were unavailable due to personal reasons, which is a big chunk.

“Our problem is with adult football.

"We have a lot of youngsters aged between 14 and 17 but you cannot throw them into senior matches and if you do, you’re then short for the junior games.

“We have lost some of our more mature referees to retirement and one of our better ones opted to go back to playing football and we haven’t had any great numbers stepping into their place.

“It was not a problem last season but when you have 50 or so referees and five or six pull out, 10 per cent of your workforce goes.

“We have to address this pretty quickly.

"We will be getting back to the clubs affected this week and the first thing we need to do is make sure they know if they won’t have a referee while we sort out a long-term solution.

“The clubs need to play. They wanted bigger leagues with more opposition so the games need to go ahead.

“Hopefully, it won’t happen too often but where there is no match official, clubs need to know on Friday so arrangement can be made.”