A couple of years ago, Bootle Referees Society was considering getting rid of its website altogether.
It wasn't because anybody thought a website was unnecessary. The problem was much simpler: the existing site had become too difficult to update.
It had been built with good intentions and there were plenty of good ideas behind it, but over time it had become increasingly complicated. Making relatively simple changes required technical knowledge, so keeping it current had become a challenge for a volunteer committee.
Faced with that, the easiest option was beginning to look like not having a website at all.
I run a web agency in my day job, so I offered to take a look and see whether we could do something different.
What struck me was that the answer wasn't to add more features or technology. It was to take things away.
We stripped the website back and started again with one simple question: What do our members actually need from us online?
Initially, the answer was remarkably straightforward. They needed to be able to join the Society, and they needed to know when and where our meetings were taking place.
So that was where we started.
Since then, the website has grown again, but this time it has grown around what our members actually use. We now publish referee development resources, Laws of the Game quizzes, Society news and stories celebrating the achievements of our members.
The biggest lesson from the whole process hasn't really been about websites or technology. It's been about keeping things simple enough that volunteers can keep them going.
What follows isn't intended to be a technical guide to building an RA website. It's simply what we've learned at Bootle, including some of the things we've got wrong along the way, that might be useful to other Local RAs.
Start with what your members actually need
One of the easiest mistakes when building a website is starting with a list of features.
Could we have member profiles? A resources section? Online quizzes? A news area? Appointment lists? A gallery? You can quickly create a huge project before you've published a single page.
We deliberately went the other way. Membership and meetings came first because they were the things members actually needed. Everything else had to earn its place afterwards. That approach also makes a website much easier to maintain.
A simple website containing accurate, current information is far more useful than an ambitious one that hasn't been updated for six months because nobody knows how it works.
It is also worth asking a slightly uncomfortable question: if the person currently looking after your website stepped down tomorrow, could somebody else reasonably take over?
Local RAs depend on volunteers and committees inevitably change. If one person is the only person who understands how something works, eventually that becomes a problem.
Keep things manageable.
Don't make the website one person's job
Don't make the website one person's job
This is something we are still working on ourselves. It is very easy for "the website" to gradually become one person's responsibility. That person ends up finding the stories, writing the articles, uploading photographs, updating meetings and sharing everything afterwards. It isn't sustainable.
The answer isn't necessarily giving ten people access to your website. It is making it easier for ten people to contribute.
Someone can send a photograph from a cup final. Another member can provide a few bullet points from a meeting. An experienced referee can talk through how they approach a particular part of the job. Somebody else can suggest questions for a quiz.
One person might still ultimately publish it, but they don't have to create everything themselves.
Small jobs are much easier to recruit volunteers for too.
"Can you help run the website?" sounds like a commitment.
"Can you give me your five best pieces of advice for a new assistant referee?" is a much easier question to answer.
It also means the website starts to represent the knowledge and personality of the whole Society rather than just the person maintaining it.
Make the website an extension of your meetings
This is one of the areas where our thinking has probably changed the most.
Like many Local RAs, we have a huge amount of refereeing experience within our membership. We have members who have officiated at the highest levels of the game alongside experienced grassroots referees, observers, mentors and people involved in referee development.
Traditionally, much of that knowledge is shared at meetings. Someone gives an excellent talk, members discuss it, everyone goes home and, unless somebody took particularly good notes, much of it stays in that room.
We started asking how we could make some of that knowledge last longer.
The website gives us the opportunity to extend the value of our meetings beyond the evening itself.
An experienced assistant referee explaining positioning, an observer discussing common areas for development or a senior referee talking through player management can all become the basis of a useful online resource.
That means members can revisit the subject afterwards and, importantly, somebody who couldn't attend the meeting can still benefit from some of the knowledge that was shared.
We started small. One of our earlier projects was a practical Guide to Assistant Refereeing. Since then, our resources have grown to include Laws of the Game material, training resources, practical guidance and regular quizzes.
Some of those resources have subsequently been shared by leagues and referees outside our area and our online activity has attracted wider media interest.
We didn't set out to achieve that. We simply tried to create information that was genuinely useful to referees.
The lesson for other Local RAs is simple:
You probably already have your best content sitting in the room at every meeting.
Capture that knowledge and make it available beyond the meeting itself. Tell everyone's story
News has become another important part of what we do.
Bootle is fortunate to have members officiating at FIFA, Premier League and EFL level, so naturally we want to celebrate their appointments and achievements.
But we don't want the website to only celebrate referees at the top of the game.
For one member, success might be a Premier League appointment. For somebody else, it could be their first county cup final, a promotion, completing their first season or receiving their first senior appointment.
Those achievements matter too.
They also help tell the story of what refereeing and RA membership actually looks like.
A newly qualified referee might enjoy reading about one of our members receiving a major professional appointment. But seeing somebody only a few steps ahead of them earning a promotion or receiving their first cup final can be just as inspiring because that feels achievable.
This is also an area where we are still trying to improve.
Professional appointments are relatively easy to find. There are fixture lists, match reports, photographs and television coverage. At grassroots level, somebody often needs to tell us that something has happened.
So we have learned that you have to ask.
Encourage members to send photographs, appointments, promotions and milestones. You don't need them to write an article. A photograph and a couple of sentences can be enough.
Once people see other members being recognised, they become much more likely to share their own achievements.
Give members a reason to come back
A website that members visit once a year to renew their membership isn't providing much ongoing value.
We wanted ours to offer reasons to return between meetings.
One simple example has been Laws of the Game quizzes.
Referees naturally enjoy testing themselves and debating decisions, so quizzes give us an easy way of combining engagement with development. They also give us something fresh to share between meetings.
But it doesn't have to be a quiz.
Development articles, interviews, meeting follow-ups, appointment news and short practical guides can all give members a reason to revisit the website.
The important thing is regularity rather than volume.
You don't need to publish something every day. A small amount of useful, regular content is better than publishing ten things at the start of the season and then leaving the site untouched.
Meet members where they already are
One thing we haven't tried to do is make the website the centre of everyday conversation.
It isn't, and realistically it probably never will be.
For us, much of that communication happens through WhatsApp.
We use a WhatsApp Community to bring Society communication together, including an announcements area alongside groups where members can talk and share information.
The website and WhatsApp therefore have different jobs.
The website is the permanent home for our information and resources. WhatsApp helps us get that information in front of members.
When we publish a new guide, quiz or news story, we can share it directly with members rather than hoping they remember to visit the website. It works in the opposite direction too.
A photograph shared after a match or somebody mentioning an appointment can become the starting point for the next website story.
Whatever platform your members use, the principle is the same.
Don't expect people to keep checking your website. Take the content to the places they already are.
Think carefully about security
This is one area where running a website for a Referees' Association brings a challenge we hadn't necessarily anticipated.
Referee names are searchable. When we publish stories about members, those pages can appear in Google when somebody searches for that referee. Most of the time that's positive. We are proud of our members and want to celebrate their achievements.
However, we have also experienced the other side of that visibility.
Following high-profile matches involving some of our members, we have seen unwanted form submissions and attempts to access the administration area of the website.
It is an unfortunate reality of promoting active match officials online and it has changed how we approach the website.
For example, we previously gave members more control over their own public profiles. We have since moved away from that approach and are more careful about who can control public-facing information.
You don't need to become a website security expert, but there are some sensible basics:
- Give people individual accounts rather than sharing passwords.
- Only give somebody the level of access they actually need.
- Remove access when it is no longer required.
- Keep the website updated and regularly backed up.
- Use two-factor authentication for people with administrative access.
- Think carefully about what information about members genuinely needs to be public.
None of this means RAs should stop promoting their referees. We certainly haven't.
But if your website identifies active match officials, particularly those operating at higher levels of the game, it is worth understanding that the website may occasionally attract attention for reasons that have nothing to do with your Society.
Our approach now is simply to plan for that rather than wait until it happens.
Use AI to save volunteer time
The biggest constraint for most Local RAs probably isn't technology or even money. It's time.
AI tools have become useful to us because they can significantly reduce the amount of time needed to turn an idea into something publishable.
A member doesn't need to sit down and write an 800-word article about their experience. They might send a few bullet points or talk through a subject. AI can help organise that information into a first draft, which can then be reviewed, corrected and published.
We've used AI to help with first drafts of news articles and guides, and to generate ideas for Laws of the Game quizzes.
There is, however, one important rule:
AI can help produce the draft. A person remains responsible for what gets published.
That is particularly important with anything involving the Laws of the Game.
AI can give an answer that sounds completely convincing and still be wrong. Anything Laws-related needs to be checked by someone suitably qualified before it goes onto the website.
Used properly, AI isn't replacing the expertise within the Society. It is simply making it quicker and easier to turn that expertise into something other members can use.
Don't get distracted by the technology
We rebuilt the Bootle website using WordPress because it suited what we needed.
That doesn't mean every RA needs a WordPress website.
The platform isn't really the important bit.
Whatever system you use should be straightforward to update, kept secure and backed up. Beyond that, concentrate on the things your members actually see.
Nobody joins a Referees' Association because it has an impressive website platform.
They care about meetings, development, support, opportunities, news and being part of a community.
The website is simply a tool to help deliver those things.
What does it cost?
This is understandably one of the first questions another Local RA might ask.
In our case, the initial rebuild took around two weeks of my time. The ongoing hosting requirements are relatively modest and my company provides the website hosting as part of its sponsorship of the Society.
That sort of arrangement may be worth exploring with businesses connected to your own membership or local area. There may be a local business willing to provide some support in return for appropriate sponsorship recognition.
But the biggest ongoing investment isn't really money. It's time.
Finding appointments, chasing photographs, producing news stories, creating guides and keeping information current all require effort.
That takes us back to one of the most important lessons we've learned: spread the workload and make contributing easy.
Where should a Local RA start?
If your Society is thinking about rebuilding its website, or perhaps wondering whether it is worth having one at all, don't start by thinking about technology.
Start with your members.
Ask: What are the two or three things our members genuinely need from us online?
Get those right first. Then look at what you already have within your Society.
You have experienced referees with knowledge worth sharing. You have developing referees achieving things worth celebrating. You have meetings producing useful discussions. You have members with stories that could encourage somebody else.
Start capturing those things. Use the website as their permanent home, then use WhatsApp, social media, email or whatever channels work for your membership to get them seen.
And don't be afraid to start small.
A couple of years ago, we were discussing whether Bootle Referees Society needed a website at all because the one we had was simply too difficult to maintain.
Today, it has become an important part of how we communicate, celebrate our members and continue referee development between meetings.
We haven't achieved that by making the website more complicated.
We've achieved it by making it simpler, giving it a clear purpose and gradually adding things that genuinely provide value.
For us, that has been the biggest lesson of all.
If any Local RA is looking at its own website or online communications, we're always happy to share what we've learned at Bootle, including the approaches, resources and ideas that have worked for us.
You can view the Bootle Referees' Society website here: https://bootle-ra.org/
You can view the Bootle Referees' Society website here: https://bootle-ra.org/
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