Fewer schools and schools games affecting the progress of the referee

Clubs are not alone in feeling the effect of less schools rugby

You could reel off the number of schools no longer playing inter school rugby fixtures and without too much trouble compile a list from Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire alone that would make interesting reading. Times have changed, but when analyzing why numbers in club rugby have declined, look no further than the supply of players coming from the schools, which is a thing of the past. Of course, there are other reasons but that one stands out, and with it the opportunity for referees to take charge of a game in a vastly different environment from club rugby.

I thought schoolboy matches posed a different kind of challenge for the referee and these probably accounted for over a third (mainly on a Wednesday afternoon!) of the total games I refereed in thirty-three years. Whilst the notion that 'both teams want to play' should be true of most fixtures, a game at 1st XV school level could often be relied on to showcase rugby in its purest form. Before league rugby engulfed us, appointment of the referee to a potentially top class schools game on a Saturday was given considerable thought; after the obvious first rate club game the school fixture came next. A small group of referees were disappointed with this, though, I would suggest, they perhaps needed to reappraise their approach to refereeing. One of my outstanding memories was of a Saturday afternoon game at Rugby School, where it all began, who were playing Cheltenham College. I am not sure that would have the same aura for today's aspiring referee. Round about that time, Millfield School, the renowned Somerset educational visionaries, had an 'arrangement' whereby the best available referee in the London Society traveled to do their home games. Such was the status of the schoolboy game, now sadly eroded because of the constraints of league appointments.

Let's be honest, we have all heard "no feel for the game" about a worryingly large number of men with the whistle who have helped to spoil a possible cracker but ,although Under 18 and seniors may be conducted under virtually the same laws, a slightly modified way of thinking benefits the schools. Perversely, the last thing they need is the schoolmaster attitude and a 'got you' atmosphere about the game. Instead what about applying a sympathetic "both teams want to play a decent game of rugby here," coupled with the more individual " if I was playing, what would I have expected from the referee in that situation?" The outcome could be a revelation.

Should anyone think that there are no touch line problems when the school game is taking place,  that would be far from the truth. In a local schools' encounter a former colleague once dispatched a troublesome parent (who just happened to be one of the school's governors!) to a position on the roadside, fully a whole pitch away from where the First team game was going on. To reach the stage of taking a spectator on like that needs a particular confidence and personality; not recommended. At the higher levels an irritant from the crowd becomes anonymous, but not much more than a crowded touch line can easily lead to confrontation if the ref 'loses it."

Not only did a high level of school game assist the development of the referee but it provided an opportunity to learn more generally on man management. Above all it was a wonderfully enjoyable seventy minutes, now denied, in the modern game, to all except a small number of referees.

1st December 2016