A SUFFOLK match official is targeting EFL Championship appointments in the future.

Brad Mingay (pictured below) recently made his debut as an assistant referee at the EFL League Two fixture between Colchester United and Cheltenham Town at the Jobserve Community Stadium

The 30-year-old, who lives in Lowestoft, started refereeing in the 2008-09 season and is now a member of the National Group Specialist Assistant Referee (NGAR).

This is his second season as a Specialist Assistant Referee; last year he operated solely at Step 1 (National League and Premier League 2 competitions), before the PGMOL merged Step1 with National Group (NG) in the summer.

Brad Mingay, who recently made his debut as an assistant referee at the EFL League Two fixture between Colchester United and Cheltenham Town at the Jobserve Community Stadium. Main photograph: Brad Mingay (right of the three match officials) walks out onto the pitch ahead of a match. 

Brad, who had been fourth official at the Colchester United versus MK Dons match earlier in the season, said: “I’ve set myself many targets over the years.

“However, when I achieved Level 3 status in 2019 I set myself the personal target of achieving the EFL as a match official."

Brad summed up his reaction when he received news of his appointment as an assistant referee on the EFL via an email.

He said: “I was over the moon when the email landed; our appointments get released at 4pm on a Monday for the following seven-ten days, and when it landed, I was shocked but a sense of pride and the thought of ‘I’ve set this target and later this week I shall achieve it’.

“I then looked at the team I was working with - I’d worked with the fourth official on a game earlier in the season (the one when I was fourth official at Colchester) but there were two new names.

“A bit of research told me they were experienced EFL officials (as is the fourth official), my coach Mike George (an ex-EFL assistant referee) was coming along in his capacity as coach, to share the moment and local refereeing colleague-turned observer Nick Cooper was completing his first observation having passed the qualification in the earlier weeks of the season.

“My target now is to keep working hard on my fitness, decision making, body language, and signals to increase my chance of more opportunities on the EFL, hopefully with a lot of hard work I can continue to progress and develop myself as a match official to achieve the SG2 list (EFL Championship) or further in years to come.”

Suffolk FA Referee Development Officer Ben Bowles said: “The Suffolk FA team and I would like to congratulate Brad on his first EFL appointment from the PGMOL.

“This is testament to Brad’s performances and work ethic on the National League this season.

“Suffolk refereeing and I look forward to monitoring Brad’s progress over the coming months and years.”