A health academic from York will be jetting off to Tokyo tomorrow to act as a referee in the Paralympics, which officially start on Tuesday.

Robert Avery, a senior lecturer in health sciences at York St John University, will be acting as a goalball referee.

Goalball is an indoor, 3-a-side team sport originally devised in 1946 to help rehabilitate soldiers who had lost their sight during the war. It has been played throughout the world ever since by people who are blind or partially sighted. The ball is the size of a basketball and contains bells. Players wear eyeshades and track it with their hearing.

There will be no GB goalball squad at this year's Paralympics, although Goalball UK are hoping to field two teams at Paris 2024.

But Robert has been selected as a referee on the basis of more than a decade of working with the sport.

York Press:

Robert Avery

He gained his goalball refereeing qualification in 2012, since when he has overseen scores of domestic and international tournaments. “I only initially did the referee's course so that I could better understand the goalball rules," he admitted. "So to get this far feels very surreal.

“My first foray into international refereeing was in 2014 and I was a nervous wreck. Suddenly you're thrust into this world where this is very serious competition and there's much more pressure than I was used to. I have to calm myself down a bit and tell myself that all I was really doing was blowing my whistle in a sports hall and refereeing the game.”

Robert admits that, because of Covid restrictions, this is likely to be an unusual Paralympics.

"Usually, you’d be able to watch other events but at the moment it looks like I'll referee the games and the rest of the time I'll be in the hotel watching it on TV like everybody else!" he said. "But it will still be an incredible opportunity and experience.”