I took the Mick in good spirit
MY very first game as a referee was the only game I have ever had to abandon. It was Wellingborough Old Grammarians 3rds and Northampton Casuals 3rds and a 30-man brawl erupted and because I hadn’t seen who the perpetrator was, I couldn’t send anyone off – so they all walked off the pitch.
From there, I worked my way up through the ranks and joined the National Panel at the start of the 1990s and refereed at all levels through to the Championship – where I did over 100 games – and beyond. My development was aided by some brilliant coaching, from the likes of Rob Binham in the early days and the late Steve Savage, both of whom were always available for the chat, banter and support on the frequent long drive home.
Remembering to restart my watch was one of the earliest lessons that I learnt. I’d forgotten to do that after a lengthy injury delay in a Bedford v Nottingham match, and so had my assistants. Bedford scored in something like the 13th minute of added time to win the match by a point. It was the fastest I have ever seen the then Nottingham head coach Martin Haag, a great guy, run across pitch – and that was up the famous Goldington Road hill – to ask my where I got the time from. The best bit about it was for a few years afterwards the Nottingham fans used to send me a Mickey Mouse watch for Christmas.
Another lesson I was taught, up at Rotherham, was to never get into an ice bath without any shorts on. Needing to recover after the game, I’d seen this wheely bin and filled it up with cold water and as much ice as I could find and hopped in totally naked. I was wheeled out into the centre of the pitch and left there. If I had got out, they wouldn’t have seen anything anyway!
My taste of refereeing in the Premiership came in an Exeter v London Welsh game down at Sandy Park when Andrew Small got injured. Normally when you’re the fourth official part of you imagines being out there in the middle but, this was one occasion when I didn’t really fancy it. It had been a long drive down from Cambridge and I didn’t feel particularly fresh and the weather was pretty miserable too. On top of that, it was Comic Relief weekend and we had special kit on – bright yellow shirts with a big red nose on them. We looked like clowns but, thankfully, I didn’t referee like one!
The highlight of my officiating career was probably being involved in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. I was fourth official at Wembley for the New Zealand v Argentina game, the game where Wayne Barnes managed to upset the New Zealanders by sending a certain Richie McCaw to the sin-bin. For the first and only time in my career I trended on twitter, because I was pictured stood beside him. As McCaw came off the pitch I said, ‘that wasn’t a very clever thing to do’ to which he replied, ‘at least I have got the talent and capability to be out there’ and I said back, ‘not for the next ten minutes you haven’t’.
I think as the game has matured the opportunity for officials and players to interact has decreased substantially. When I started there was a lot more friendly banter. I always remember when Austin Healey was captaining Leicester 2nds v Northampton 2nds when he was coming back from injury. He came into the changing room at half-time, shouting and screaming, ‘Darren, Darren, you have got to sort this out’, I said, ‘calm down Austin, just keep your hair on’. He’d just become an ambassador for the hair regrowth company and didn’t see the funny side and stormed out. As a former scrumhalf myself, I used to enjoy refereeing scrum-halves. Whenever they chirped away at me, I just used to say, ‘that’s the same rubbish I used to spout back in the day!’
I think that side of officiating has gone a bit now, The way Spreaders (Tony Spreadbury) used to referee was all personality. Nigel Owens is another but I don’t think we’ll see those type of referees anymore, it’s a much more regimented and structured approach nowadays.
A month or so ago I returned to refereeing after about an eight-year absence, at local level. I’m going back to the types of clubs I refereed at when I first started in the East Midlands Society.
I think this is a massive year for rugby at the community level. Clubs are really, really struggling because the focus is now so much on the elite end of the game. I think if we don’t get rugby right this year at the community level people will drift away from the game instead of lacing up their boots every Saturday. Part of that means making sure there are enough referees every week, so I am enjoying supporting the RFUs Keep Your Boots on initiative to get people to take up and stay in refereeing our great game.
“I was taught to never get into an ice bath without any shorts on”