Norwich Sunday League Fixture Secretary Bernie Hardiman has received a "Gold Award" from the FA for 50 Years Continuous Service to Football". He was presented with the award by Norfolk' s FA representative Roger Howlett at the County Headquarters. Bernie describes his career in his own words.

At the age of 18, I had to join the Army and was posted to Aldershot for ten weeks, and whilst there, played for the Army eleven. I was then posted to the war office in London for the rest of my time in the Army and was made captain of the Army London and District football team which played their games in midweek and on Saturdays I played for a quite successful Civil Service team, winning three trophies in two seasons.

After demob from the Army, I came home to Norwich and got a job with Mann Egerton, and for two seasons played for their works team in the East Anglian League, after which I went back to my original team Henderson Utd and finished my Saturday football playing with them. It was about this time, in 1958, that the Norwich & District Sunday League was formed. I was captain of Earlham United from 1958 to 1963, and we were the most successful team around at that time. During that period we won Division 1 four times (For two seasons we never lost a game), the League Cup once and the Charity Cup once. We also won the Sunday Cup twice at Carrow Road before Earlham United finished, and in 1963 I took up refereeing. In season 1963/64, I was a class three referee, refereeing on both Saturdays and Sundays in local football. After three seasons, I was promoted to class two and then class one and became an official in the Eastern Counties League. A year later i was promoted to the Southern League which took me further afield to places like Romford, Chelmsford, Kettering, Kings Lynn and Cambridge etc, and during this time, I came across many household names like Jimmy Greaves, Jeff Astle, Geoff Hurst, Derek Dougan and the legend of football John Charles. He and his brother were at that time playing for Merther Tydfil. During this time I still refereed in local football and was most fortunate to have been chosen to referee in the League Cup Finals of the Eastern Counties League, The Anglian Combination, Business House League and The Sunday League. At County level, I refereed the Saturday Senior Cup Final, two Sunday Senior Cup finals all at Carrow Rd, and also the Intermediate Cup Final. I also ran the line in the Sunday Senior Cup Final. At this point i would like to point out that Alan Williams and myself are the only two people in Norfolk to have played, refereed and run the line in the NCFA Sunday Senior Cup at Carrow Rd. After twenty one years of refereeing, I finished to take on more football administration work.

I first got involved in administration in 1966 when I became the first referee's representative on the Sunday League. In 1970, I became an officer of the league as fixtures secretary, a position I still hold today. In 1980 I was elected onto the NCFA as a council member, serving on several committees'. I was appointed commission secretary in 1982 to deal with NCFA disciplinary matters, although my time in this position is now sadly coming to an end.

Football still takes up allot of my time, but talking to and meeting people involved in the sport gives me a great deal of satisfaction and this year I was given Life Membership of the Norwich Sunday League after 50 years service. career in football in his own words.

I was born in Norwich, and apart from two years National Service in the Army, have lived here all of my life. I first started playing football like most boys did, at school. I went to the Henderson school and played for the school team each year and also on one occasion, represented Norwich Boys. I played for Henderson Minors until I was sixteen and then joined Henderson adult side.