SHE is the Asian women’s referee of the year, was on the FIFA list at 23, controlled a women’s semi-final in the 2008 Beijing Olympics, has had charge of top games in top stadiums all over the world and yesterday refereed the FA Women’s Cup final between Arsenal and Everton at Nottingham Forest.

On other occasions, however, Una Hong – Korean, still just 30 – may be found running the line in the Northern League or refereeing in the Wearside League. Most of the time there’s not even a separate room in which she can change.

Despite global success in women’s football, she’s now in her fourth season at what’s termed level four in the English refereeing structure – that narrow white line proving a stillinsurmountable barrier.

“It’s disappointing,” she says, and prudently will say little else. “For the past two years I have tried really hard to be promoted, but I haven’t made it, unfortunately. I have to be patient. It isn’t my choice. I just have to keep going. There’s nothing I can do, the FA has been very supportive to me since I came here.”

She lectures on sports policy at Durham University – Department of Applied Social Sciences – the only Northern League assistant referee with a doctorate and probably one of the few who goes to church on Sunday mornings. “It helps me relax,” she says.

Fourth estate meets level four in the Royal County Hotel. Four words?

Courteous, careful, determined, professional.

Bright, burning – brightburning – by way of bonus.

“I know it sounds exciting, but my life is quite boring a lot of the time,” she insists.

“It hasn’t all been up.

There’ve been a lot of downs as well. I’ve had to overcome it. I don’t really want to talk about the downs.”

Previously an assistant in the East Midlands League, she moved north earlier this year. “Durham is a lovely city, everyone has been very kid to me,” says Una.

Among the frustrations, however, has been the assistant ref’s frequent inactivity. “It can be quite cold in the North-East,” she concedes, inarguably, though West Auckland FC secretary Allen Bayles recalls being much impressed by her recent performance at Consett (than which few grounds are colder.) “When I complimented her, she thanked me politely and called me ‘young man’,”

says Allen, recently retired.

She is an only child, her father sporting, her mother rather wishing that her daughter’s passions lay elsewhere. At 14, she was watching on television the World Cup game between Korea and Spain, her attention caught not by the players but, centre of attention, by the ref.

Driven like a Formula 1 flyer, she at once decided not just to be a football referee but a top international referee. “For some people refereeing is about keeping fit, or enjoyment, but I was certain I wanted to be at the top.

“I am quite ambitious and sometimes it’s rather tiring. I can’t really lead an easy life.

I have friends who are quite relaxed and sometimes I envy them. I’ve had a lot of dreams since I was young. I still have a lot. I’m a person who really wants to achieve something. I really feel great when I achieve something.”

She admits to an ultimate ambition, politely declines to reveal it. Almost certainly it involves reaching the Premiership before returning to Korea, perhaps in ten years.

She took a referees’ course at the age of 19, first came to England in 2000 and quickly achieved what then was class 1, highest of three.

Then football moved the goalposts, as frequently it does. When she returned to study for a PhD at Loughborough – a Korea move inevitably suggests itself – the levels were 1-10 and she was automatically a four.

She trains hard – “I’m not naturally fit. If I keep working hard I’m fit, if I don’t I struggle” – adopts the standard FA line on offensive language that if the f-word is frustration it may be accepted but not if it’s aimed directly at a match official.

“I would like to eradicate it from the game, but you have to show common sense.

There’s a Respect campaign now and I really hope that does well.”

A spectator once suggested that she get back to the kitchen. She’s heard worse she says.

Age remains clearly on her side, though she faces another year of mixing world travel with Shildon and Silksworth, Annfield Plain and Ashington.

Later this month she’ll be a referee at the Asian Women’s Cup in Beijing, in June will be an official at the FIFA Under-20s tournament in Germany. Though she misses home and family, there’ll be no time to visit. “I have work to do here,” she says.

She hopes also to be appointed to the 2011 Women’s World Cup and to the London Olympics the following year.

It was Friday afternoon, the FA final three days away.

“I’m starting to get excited,”

she admits. “There is a pressure to do well. I just hope that at the end of the match no one is talking about the referee. That will be an achievement, too.”

NEVILLE Meade, the oldest first-time champion in British boxing history, has died. Brian Robertson in Bishop Auckland reminds us of the local connections.

Back in 2002, we recalled that Meade – born in Jamaica, adopted by Wales – had played Durham County League cricket for Tudhoe, while stationed at RAF Catterick.

Like many another Jamaican, he couldn’t half shift it. Unlike many, he had difficulty keeping the plane on the aircraft carrier.

“Awfully wayward,” former Tudhoe team mate John Davies had recalled.

He’d also been mates with Darlington comedian Dave “Grizzly” Adams, who last saw him selling baby clothes on Neath market. He was 62.

THE regrettable problems arising from last Wednesday’s Penrith v Chester-le-Street match – now to be replayed tomorrow – have proved particularly irksome for John Stangrom.

Though completely blind, John’s a groundhopper. With his guide dog, he’d travelled from his Suffolk home to tick off Penrith’s new Northern League ground, caught an overnight train back to Euston, crossed London, found a connection from Liverpool Street and was finally home by 10am.

The game’s void, the groundhoppers have their codes. “It doesn’t count,”

says John. “I’m going to have to do it all again.”

YET further afield, John Oxenham made a flying visit from Moscow to Spennymoor on Saturday to sponsor the match at which Spennymoor Town were presented with the skilltrainingltd Northern League championship. John, a member of the familiar “Clem’s” fish and chip shop family, runs a construction company in Moscow.

“There’s probably more money in fish and chips,” he insisted.

THE younger bairn, now with the BBC in London, had cause last week to prepare a news bulletin that included a school choir singing the George Formby classic Leaning on a Lamppost.

It took him back to a childhood trip to watch Lincoln City v Hartlepool, April 3 1995, when the Pools fans chorused the same song in acknowledgment of City goalkeeper Andy Leaning, once with York and now Sheffield United’s goalie coach.

Pools lost 3-0, City’s scorers including someone called Carbon. Probably that’s how he dated it.

INSPIRED by the presence of the cameras, our friends at Wearhead United duly won their Crook and District League match on Saturday, 4-2 against Newton Aycliffe Cumby Rovers. The televisuals, it may be recalled, were part of a prize from Ginster’s, the pasty people. The company also had a chuck wagon on the ground – free to all – and paid for the postmatch spread down at the Golden Lion in St John’s Chapel. “It was a brilliant day,” says club secretary Ray Snaith, but the menu may leave little to the imagination.

And finally

THE former England cricket captain who stood for the Conservatives against Jim Callaghan in Cardiff South-East (Backtrack, May 1) was Ted Dexter. Sunny Jim increased his majority.

The Roker Park favourite who in 1987 represented the Liberals in Sunderland North was Vic Halom.

OK then, who’s the only British prime minister to have played first class cricket? Election over, the column returns on Saturday.