Eric Edge is an ex-footballer turned grassroots referee who is now sharing his journey as a referee on YouTube.
Edge believes that by sharing his journey, he has helped players humanise himself as a referee.
Edge stated: “I do think referees are not really seen as people, you don’t really know anything about them other than the fact that they’re a referee.
“It makes it very easy then to cast your frustrations onto them because there is no personal touch there.”
On Edge’s YouTube channel he reviews his performances from the weekend, he wants to be as open as possible in an effort to reduce the negative stigma toward referees in grassroots football.
He said: “I’ll be authentic, I’ll show the good and the bad and I think people must appreciate that.”
When Edge was younger he played for Cheltenham Town as their development goalkeeper, he was eventually then offered scholarship to play over in the US.
Edge said: “I played in university for six months, and then I got offered a trial to go and play for a team called FC Miami.”
While at FC Miami, Edge was exposed to some very unique opportunities.
He revealed: “I trained with PSG for a couple of weeks, met some great players and learned loads from them.”
Edge then returned to the UK where he said he “played non-league a little bit in the Southern League, and then we went into lockdown.
“So, I stopped playing football and that is how my brief footballing career ended.”
Edge was then in the situation where he still wanted to be involved in football, but he said he was not interested in coaching as he “just cannot stand dealing with the parents.”
This led Edge to the decision to become a referee, along with this Edge decided to document his journey. His reasoning behind doing this was because he “was looking for refereeing content online, and there’s none. There are maybe, like two channels.
“I thought how do new referees even figure out what they should and shouldn’t be doing? Because there’s no one you can chat to, unless your local FA is set up very well.”
Edge’s YouTube ‘Behind the Whistle’ has gained significant traction since being launched at the end of January, having amassed 1,200 subscribers and 47,000 channel views.
Edge attributes his quick success in the space to there being “no real support out there for grassroots referees, it’s very hard to access it.
“So, I think people find it helpful and there are people that don’t watch football because they don’t know the rules, they are able to potentially learn from my videos.”
Edge also believes that the process of reviewing his games has improved his own game as a referee.
He said “When you are a player you get instant feedback, so the moment you do something wrong, you get told, and then you get told how to fix it.
“Whereas when you’re learning to be a referee, you couldn’t be further away from that, everyone tells you that you’re doing everything wrong anyway.
“There’s no way for you to really grasp where you are on the pitch without watching it back, so the videos definitely help.”
