Visiting speaker: Pupils had stars in their eyes!

King’s St Alban’s Prep School pupils had stars in their eyes as they welcomed the latest visiting speaker, Premier League Assistant Referee Mat Wilkes to assembly this week.

In a more informal style than perhaps the pupils are used to during assembly, Mr Chapman, Headmaster of King’s St Alban’s interviewed Mat. Discussing his role with Mr Chapman, Mat shared the highlights of his career, including hearing the roar of the crowd at matches. However, the most significant highlight of his career was the FA Cup Final in 2019 between Manchester City and Watford United. Opening up to the floor, pupils were eager to discover more, asking a plethora of questions including whether Mat ever gets nervous before a match. It turns out that the answer is yes, he always has and still does, in fact he was nervous doing assembly! That said, Mat shared his strategy for managing his nerves, thinking about good things that have happened before and how things have turned out well. Mat concluded that nerves are a good thing as they create a buzz that allows you to do great things, a great piece of advice for our young, aspiring pupils.

Pupils went on to ask about the behaviour of players towards him and how they should be role models for children like themselves. Mat advised that it is important to question the behaviour of supposed role models and to consider whether you would want to copy the poor behaviour sometimes demonstrated by players at matches.

Pupils asked about resilience, to which Mat suggested that everyone’s paths are different, but that resilience can be built by experiencing setbacks, understanding and recognising those feelings. When asked about overcoming difficulties, Mat shared experiences of recovering from cancer and his father dying and said the most important thing to do is to talk, find out what others are experiencing and offload.

The questions kept on coming, with the audience wanting to hear about all the famous footballers Mat had worked with and his favourite Premier League side. Apparently, he doesn’t have one! But he is fond of Kidderminster Harriers, as theirs was first game to which his father took him.

Mat left the children with a piece of advice, “Have a go at anything, always try different things.”