SBI held its first Introduction to recruiting Junior Referees at Under 21 Tournament in SBI HQ in Carlow on Saturday 4th October 2025. Seven New referees were appointed Class 4 snooker referees by Neil Shanahan EBSA Tutor.
The New Referees are James Stewart O’Reilly, Scott Cooke, Will Shannon, Aaron Donnelly, Colum Wheatley, Max Kennedy and Colm Behan.
All New Referees were given a handout of Questions and Answers and Neil explained the answers e.g. Spotting Balls, setting up table at beginning of frame, wrong playing breaking off, when do you call a foul, jump shot, red spotted instead of brown, foul and a miss, free ball, playing with cue ball other than the white at beginning and during a frame.
All showed great enthusiasm to go on a journey to achieve a class 3 EBSA Qualified Snooker Referee.
To become a class 3 Referee new referees will undergo 6 hours Tuition and Training by Examiner Shane Mason and Myself. This training may be divided into 3 x 2 hours, or 6 x 1 hour or 6 hours all together. At the end of training all new referees will undergo a class 3 examination where they will be asked a number of questions and observed refereeing a best of 3 frames of snooker.
On passing the examination all new referees will be awarded a class 3 EBSA snooker referee certificate and name submitted to EBSA to be registered as an official EBSA Referee. When qualified as a Class 3 Referee all new Junior Referees will be given a pair of referee gloves, a rule book and free entry to all SBI Tournaments.
All New Class 4 Referees will be contacted in the very near future to start their training for Class 3 Official EBSA Referees.
Neil Shanahan
EBSA Referee Tutor
