Official Kicks — Sian Piret (Referee)

A first-person piece by Sian Piret, 31, appointed to the officiating team for the FA Women’s Cup Final at Ashton Gate on 26 May, fresh from running the line at Arsenal against Chelsea at the Emirates. Piret heard about a referee’s course through the team she played for in Oxford in late 2006, qualified in early 2007, and refereed her first game in a men’s university fixture having bought herself a black polo shirt and shorts. She officiates both men’s and women’s football, finding the men’s game the greater challenge of control and the Super League more skilful than the equivalent men’s football she referees. She works as a medical researcher on inherited kidney diseases, trains alone on a pitch behind her house, and names Wendy Toms and Janie Frampton as the trailblazers.