Young umpire Ben Johnson was shortlisted for an award and met one of Britain’s top officials at the Sports Officials UK National Awards presentation.

The youngster from Grantham was nominated as School Games Official of the Year. He is one of the youngest qualified county umpires at 14 and, as well as umpiring at the Sainsbury’s School Games was chosen to be part of the Oath-taking ceremony, which he read on behalf of all Technical Officials at the event.

Ben was runner-up at the awards, which were held at Abbey Hotel in Great Malvern, on Thursday, with Jon Mason of UK Athletics declared the winner.

The speaker at the awards ceremony was Martin Bodenham, who was on football’s FIFA List from 1992 to 1996 and was one of the first Premier League referees. He retired in 1998 after 19 seasons and trained as a cricket umpire – he has also been on ECB List of first-class umpires since 2009.

Ben has now been nominated to attend the Youth Sport Trust Talent Camp for young officials at Loughborough University in December.