Camden News - by PAUL KEILTHY Published: 12 March 2009
Liboria Risveglia
League mourns sudden death of referee, aged 19
CAMDEN’S youth football league is mourning the death of its youngest female referee, who died in her sleep aged 19.
Liboria Risveglia, who was involved with the Camden and Islington Youth League as a player and then a referee from the age of 13, was found dead at her Tufnell Park home last Tuesday.
At one time the only female referee in the 1,500-member Camden and Islington league, Miss Risveglia was a popular and respected regular officiating at the league’s pitches in Market Road, Kentish Town.
Her father, Tony, said he, his wife and Liboria’s brother were “very, very proud of her achievements”, both as a musician studying at the WAC college in Hampstead Old Town Hall and as a referee. “She was so proud of wearing that referee’s shirt and holding that whistle,” he said.
The former pupil of La Sainte Union school drew tributes from league members.
Fellow referee and longstanding Islington Tufnell Youth organiser Gill Magwood said Liboria Risveglia had encouraged her to take up the whistle.
She said: “Seeing Liboria’s approach to the job inspired me to become a referee, and we soon became friends as well.”
Miss Risveglia’s funeral will take place at St Peter’s Italian church, Clerkenwell Road, at 1.30pm on Friday. An inquest into her death will be held in May.