Over the years Findlay has had to develop a thick skin when it comes to copping abuse from supporters, but he maintains that umpiring at a junior level was far more daunting than it is now at AFL level. "There was often a pretty negative environment with parents yelling at you and coaches. I guess I surprised myself by not giving up and quitting but there were certainly times in the first few years of my umpiring where I sort of thought, 'Is it really worth it?' I guess at AFL level it's just one big roar, you can't hear anything personal. You can't hear specific things people are saying. You're concentrating on what's going out on the field so much that the crowd is sort of secondary to whatever else is going on. You just become a bit accustomed and acclimatised to it."
So far Findlay has officiated 18 AFL games but within that short time he has managed to umpire one of the biggest on the AFL fixture. "I umpired Carlton versus Collingwood two weeks ago. There was 80,000 people there and that was by far the biggest crowd I have umpired in front of. I remember the first time I ever umpired at the MCG. It was about 10 years ago. It was an under-18s elimination final back in the days when they used to play them as curtain raisers to the AFL finals as well. To get that opportunity to run on the field back then was great but to do it in front of 80,000 people is just a different experience altogether."
Umpiring is a physically demanding job. On top of the two umpire training sessions a week, Findlay works on his fitness nearly every day. "I would run six days a week including game days, so there would probably be one day a week where I wouldn't do any physical exercise, which is typically the day before a game. Two nights a week of training and a game isn't enough to keep you at the fitness that you need. We have fitness tests throughout the year as well ... and there's also skin fold tests and what we do every month as well. Having the fitness and knowing you're fit gives you confidence that you can keep up with the game and be in the right position to make decisions. If you didn't have the fitness, your performance in terms of your decision-making would certainly suffer."
But umpiring is just a part-time job for Findlay. During the week he puts his whistle away and goes to work on aircrafts. "I studied aerospace engineering at university. I'm working at a company called BAE systems doing engineering work on navy and air force helicopters and aircrafts. It's cool stuff. Basically we work in developing repairs and modifications for those aircrafts to keep them flying and that sort of stuff. It's pretty interesting."
Between making helicopters fly, umpire training and officiating games, Findlay doesn't have a lot of spare time on his hands. "You just try to fit things in where you can. The umpiring takes up a lot of your time outside work. We travel interstate every second week for football, which means being away from home for 24 hours or thereabouts. It's always an overnight trip. So you are generally only left, if you're lucky, with one day on the weekend where you have some free time."
