Hayden Kennedy
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Hayden Kennedy (born October 16, 1965) is an Australian rules football field umpire in the Australian Football League. He has umpired 388 career games in the AFL. [1] [2]
One of the veterans on the umpire circuit, Kennedy has umpired five AFL Grand Finals since debuting in the late 1980's.[3]
[edit] Early career
Kennedy started his career as an umpire in the Essendon district Football League in 1983. After one season there, he was recruited into the VFL cadets squad.
In 1986, Hayden Kennedy umpired the under 19 VFL grand final, and by 1987 had been promoted to the senior list. At this level he umpired the VFL reserves and country football matches.
[edit] Career in the Australian Football League
Kennedy began umpiring in the Australian Football League in 1988, with a game between the North Melbourne Kangaroos and the Carlton Blues [4]
In the 1995 AFL season, Kennedy umpired in all 21 weeks of Home and Away games, and a further 4 weeks of finals. He was the first umpire to achieve this in 38 years, and the 11th field umpire to do so. [5]
After reaching the milestone of 300 games in 2002, he qualified for a life membership with the AFL. At that stage he had umpired 294 premiership season games, as well as 22 pre-season matches and 3 State of Origin games. [6]
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ At the completion of Week 1 of the finals for the 2006 AFL season.
- ^ AFLUA Statistics, accessed on September 18, 2006
- ^ Hayden Kennedy at the AFL Umpires Association, accessed on October 27, 2006
- ^ Carlton won this match 147-131
- ^ The last person to accomplish this had been Alan Nash in 1957
- ^ 10 new life members added in 2003 - AFL website, accessed on October 27, 2006
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