Two of New Zealand’s top match officials in football and netball have spent the week at the Zespri AIMS Games in Tauranga, mentoring the next generation and giving back to the sports that have taken them around the world.

Anna-Marie Keighley was a referee at the recent FIFA Women's World Cup in New Zealand and Australia, officiating matches on both sides of the Tasman.

Angela Armstrong-Lush umpired the gold medal match at the Netball World Cup in South Africa last month, as well as the gold medal match at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last year.

Both women are passionate about raising the profiles of refereeing and umpiring as viable sporting pathways for young people and have been soaking up the opportunity to share that message at the AIMS Games.

“Being able to support it in this space is really important – to say it’s not just about playing, it’s actually about officiating as well,” says Keighley.

Refereeing football has taken her all around the world, including to the FIFA Women’s World Cup events in Canada in 2015 and France in 2019.

“There are opportunities everywhere and it actually doesn’t matter what level official you are.”

Even young and developing referees can travel overseas for youth tournaments, she says.

FIFA Women's World Cup referee Anna-Marie Keighley has spent the week coaching the next generation of New Zealand football officials at the Zespri AIMS Games. Photo / Jamie Troughton.

“You don’t have to get to the pinnacle of your career before you have those opportunities, you can actually have them all the way through.”

Keighley has spent the past several years focusing on the FIFA Women’s World Cup cycles and getting herself ready for those big events, which has included refereeing tournaments across Oceania – both male and female – as well as international women’s friendlies in South Korea and Australia.

She now has her eye on next year’s Paris Olympics, but is also taking time to focus on coaching and mentoring at the grassroots level.

“It’s nice to be able to give back and come along and be part of other referees’ journeys,” Keighley says of her week at the AIMS Games.

“It’s phenomenal here, we have so many girls involved.”

She is particularly excited about seizing the momentum created by the most successful FIFA Women’s World Cup ever, and what that could mean for women in football in New Zealand.

“This one was extra special because it was a home World Cup and the biggest Women’s World Cup so far as well, just the scale and magnitude of it, the capabilities of the women to play, and just how New Zealand and Australian fans got behind it.”

She's one of two New Zealand referees officiating at this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.

“If we can get more coming through the system then hopefully we can get more at that level,” says Keighley.

This week she worked with youth referee development coordinators Anna Harris and Nadia Murrihy Browning from WaiBOP Football, who run an academy for young refs.

There were more than 40 football referees at AIMS Games this year, with close to half of them female.

“This week we’re here as coaches, we go and watch games and give a little bit of feedback during half time and then after the game.

“The idea is to be here as supporters and be able to just give them one or two things just to help them along their journey and to keep them going, ultimately just be there as a touch point because lots of them are nervous, some of them haven’t been out on the field before, some of them have, but there’s lots of parents here and there’s lots of other outside influences.”

The Zespri AIMS Games is a week-long sports tournament with 11,700 intermediate-age participants from 373 schools around the country and overseas, including Fiji, Samoa and the Cook Islands. There are 25 codes.

Netball and football are two of the most popular sports on offer, with 144 netball teams and 88 football teams.

Top New Zealand netball umpire Angela Armstrong-Lush, who is also a teacher at Feilding Intermediate School, has been juggling all her school duties this week with umpiring matches at Tauranga Netball Centre.

“I’m passionate about giving back to the game and this is where I started,” she says.

Armstrong-Lush started umpiring netball when she was about 11 years old.

Top New Zealand netball umpire Angela Armstrong-Lush has been juggling her school duties this week with umpiring matches at Tauranga Netball Centre. Photo / Michael Bradley.

She has a successful playing career, representing New Zealand in indoor netball and also playing in the National Bank Cup (now the ANZ Premiership) for the Western Flyers.

“I continued to play until I hit about the age of 30 and decided I’m not going to be a Silver Fern,” says Armstrong-Lush.

She focused on her umpiring instead and has reached the very top of international netball, officiating some of the biggest matches at the most important events around the world.

Armstrong-Lush lists umpiring at the AIMS Games as one of her career highlights. She spent this week informally mentoring some of the younger umpires.

“We share the same passion, we’re here for netball, and a lot of the techniques that they get taught, we’re actually still doing at an international level.”

She has the same message to share as Keighley.

“Umpiring actually takes you all over the world and there’s so many opportunities, just like a player.”