Picture: THOMAS MILES
YOUNG Mount Gambier umpire Ben Thiel will officiate at this weekend’s South Australian Country Football Championships in Port Pirie.
Just like some of the region’s top footballers, Thiel has been selected as the sole Western Border Football League field umpire at the prestigious competition.
At just 17 years of age, he joins the more experienced Travis Lockwood from the Mid South East Football League as the two umpires selected from the Murray South East zone.
It is a rare opportunity for Thiel as the WBFL is only required to supply an umpire once every three years for the state-wide championships.
He said the chance to umpire the top regional football in the state was a goal he had been striving for since he started his career.
“I wanted to do it for years and years, but I had to wait for my turn to have a crack and now it has finally arrived,” Thiel said.
“Just to know that I am the one who is getting selected and thought of the most feels pretty good.”
Thiel said he looks forward to the challenge and will try and soak up as many tips as he can from his more experienced counterparts.
“I am hoping to learn a bit from the new SANFL country umpiring officer and see how the other umpires go about it,” he said.
“It would be great if I can learn some new tricks or even see if I can help them.”
Since he made the switch from boundary to field umpiring in 2015, Thiel has already achieved many feats in his short umpiring career, which includes being awarded the top field umpiring award in the South East – the golden whistle – on two occasions.
He has also controlled a number of grand finals at league, state and national level.
Thiel has officiated the Under 15 nationals grand final between South Australia and Victoria, the Under 15 metro SANFL grand final and the last two Western Border A Grade grand finals.
Later this year he has been offered the once-in-a-lifetime chance to travel to France, England and Ireland to umpire an Under 15 international rules series.
But Thiel said his latest promotion has the potential to be his best yet.
“This is my opportunity to get my greatest achievement,” he said.
“If I do well enough this weekend, I will get selected to umpire the South Australia v Western Australia senior game at Optus Stadium in Perth.
“It will be a great experience because it is a curtain raiser before an AFL game.”
Thiel said he did not have a particular inspiration to start umpiring and saw it as just a fun way to earn money on the weekends.
“It was just because I was playing footy at the time and wanted to earn a bit of cash on the weekend,” he said.
“I got a bit bored of boundary umpiring and thought the field umpires do everything all the time, so I wanted to do a bit of that.”
He said he would not have made it this far without the strong support from mentor and long-time South East field umpire Terry Walters.
“My greatest support has obviously been Terry,” Thiel said.
“I rang him up when I first became a field umpire and asked if he could mentor me and he said sure.
“He went to every game, wrote a report for me and did everything.
“He has been an incredible support.”
Thiel said the most rewarding aspect of umpiring is when you receive the hard-earned respect from the top players.
“Not everyone will agree with you, but there is a lot of satisfaction as an umpire when you and the players know you have made the right decision,” he said.
“The challenge of earning respect from players is the most rewarding challenge for an umpire.”
Thiel said he has a clear ambition to reach the highest honour as a field umpire.
“I obviously have the dream of being an AFL umpire,” he said.
“I work hard each week to try and get better to reach the top level.”
