NO TELEVISION LIMELIGHT FOR RETIRED REFEREES

The options available when referees

decide to call it a day

Brian O’Driscoll and Johnny Wilkinson both retired at the end of last season to become media pundits. In different ways they look to have a second distinguished career in front of them, far removed from the stresses of coaching, although they will no doubt become involved wherever required. Ever thought what referees get up to once they decide to hang up the whistle?

There is a larger variety of options than you think. You could gradually be easing yourself out of all that running around by becoming a touch judge (referee assistant in the national leagues), though the distance you cover in a high scoring game is quite surprising; or you might want ‘to put something back into the game,’ a phrase that always puzzles me, by waving the flag at you own club. An interesting test of your integrity this one because you can never be certain how scrupulously fair the club touch judge is; one from a very senior club, before the game went professional, openly admitted to me that fifty-fifty calls would only go one way as he was obliged to travel back home on the coach with his team for three hours after the game.

Perhaps advising/assessing or coaching is more for you? After all, on a Saturday nearly everyone present at a match knows what the man with the whistle is doing wrong. Depending on the level of referee you watch, a form is provided of varying severity to evaluate his performance, ranging from relatively uncomplicated at the lower levels to a document which requires rather more time and thought higher up the ladder.  Time! I have it on good authority that you might as well set aside three hours on a Sunday to write up a report which comprehensively lists all his mistakes!

You may have gathered that I am not the greatest fan of assessment but coaching may be less daunting. There is always one critical proviso in doing this job. If the ‘assessor’ wasn’t one of the greatest referees, what kind of advice is he now filling his victim’s head with? So, if the clipboard, walkie-talkie and waterproof are not for you then it may have to be another form of administration. There is not the same attraction in inviting former international referees to pass judgement on television as bringing back former international players. It has occasionally happened and has provided a different slant on the proceedings but until, heaven forbid, the referee achieves celebrity status it will be a case of ‘dream on’.

MARTIN REGAN

Martin Regan, who died at the age of 85 towards the end of October, played fly half for Liverpool and was capped twelve times for England between 1953 and 1956 before signing professional forms for Warrington Rugby League Club. A schoolmaster, he taught at St.Edward’s College, St.John’s in Warrington and St.Anselm’s College, Birkenhead. An interesting Pathe Newsreel shows Martin scoring a try against Ireland in 1954.       www.britishpathe.com/video/twickenham-england-v-ireland

A packed Church attended his funeral service at St.Monica’s  in Appleton, Warrington, on November 12th.

David Matthews (November 2104)