It is a question you often hear in sporting circles and that is because officiating comes with its pitfalls.

There is the “ugly” side of being a referee – the abuse that is sometimes directed their way from players, coaches and supporters.

Such is the problem that there are now dedicated Referee Recognition Weekends in various sports.

This year a new rule has also come into play that National Premier League first-grade teams will be docked competition points if their teams - from under-13s to the top grade – are involved in three incidents of serious referee abuse during a season.

But none of that has deterred one Hamilton family.

Daniel Norris has been a football referee since he was a teenager. And now the 42-year-old has two teenage daughters working their way up the local ranks of officialdom as well.

According to Norris, his daughters Verity, 16, and Maxine, 13, “are the most dedicated referees”.

“They train three nights a week and referee all weekend,” he said.

But a love for refereeing was not always the case for the two teenagers.

When Norris decided to get back into refereeing around five years ago and started “dragging” his daughters to football they hated it.

It was a shortage of referees one day that prompted him to tell the girls to, “Grab a flag each and run the line”.

Verity was at first horrified but found the more she did the more she liked it.

“As much as I tried to be stubborn, I actually fell in love with the game and I can’t thank him enough,” she said. “My life ambition now is to become a World Cup referee, to become a full-time referee.”

The Hunter School Of The Performing Arts student is already refereeing beyond her years and has just returned from officiating at the international Kanga Cup in Canberra.

“It has given me a lot of confidence,” she said.

“You have got to have a thick skin because you have your ups and downs; it’s not always a fairy tale but it is very rewarding and all of the positives add up.”