Former NHS administrative worker Rebecca Welch will make a little piece of Carlisle United history on Saturday.
The 37-year-old from Washington, County Durham will be the first woman to referee a game involving Carlisle United in the Football League.
She will be in the middle for the home game with Scunthorpe some 27 years since Carlisle were involved in a small part of female refereeing history. Their game at Torquay saw Wendy Toms become the first woman to run the line in a Football League match.
It will be her third game involving League Two teams, having previously been in charge this season of Rochdale v Colchester and Hartlepool v Bristol Rovers.
She was promoted to the National Group refereeing list for this season – and was the first female referee to move up to that level.
Welch was called up last season to referee Harrogate v Port Vale and that made her the first woman to take charge of an EFL game.
Praise at the time from the Port Vale manager Darrell Clarke will certainly have helped her progress. His side won the game 2-0.
After the game, he was quoted as saying: “We need to see more women referees and lineswomen moving forward. They should be judged like anyone else and she has had a good start.”
Welsh has previously refereed in the women’s Super League and the women’s FA Cup final, and also in the National League before being included on UEFA’s elite women’s list.
Welch became a football referee in 2010 but continued to work in her NHS post until 2019. She had played football from a young age and studied to be a referee with the Durham County FA.
Her first two matches were women’s university games, followed by a Sunday league match in Sunderland, something she has described as being “a completely different kettle of fish” compared to the university games.
Welch’s appointment to referee the Harrogate v Port Vale match was announced by the FA on March 30. It made Welch the first woman to be appointed to referee an English Football League game, though not the first woman to referee during a game.
Amy Fearn was the substitute referee for the final 20 minutes of a match between Coventry City and Notts Forest in February 2010 when the original referee was taken off due to injury.
