Who'd believe that I retired from Refereeing football over twenty years ago after having served in West Devon and then Staffordshire for 12 years, before retiring at the age of around 30. In fact I took a break when my children were young and never went back. Retiring from the Staffordshire Senior league and Northern Premier league in 1991. I started in my last year at school when a certain John Maynard encouraged all the football team to take the course as it would be good for us.
Only a few of us went on to referee and I rose up through the local leagues to reach class 1 at the tender age of 19 and I hit the local newspaper as I had broke some record in doing so.My first outing to Home Park ( home of Plymouth Argyle for the uneducated) can be seen on the right was at the tender age of 17. Here I had been distracted by Nicky Bennett who used to be in the same school team as me. As I rose up the ranks so did many of my team mates and in fact I can remember booking a few of them along the way. I went on to referee or line at many great grounds both north and south, but resigned gracefully when I moved to Kent.
I sometimes regret stopping refereeing, I was on my way and young enough to make the big time but never got higher than the Northern Premier league with few FA Cup preliminaries and the odd amateur league final thrown in along the way. I also wonder what would have happened if I'd kept playing and often look back with some regret here, life in the middle could be quite lonely I and wasn't a bad player.
I saved all sorts of memorabilia which may appear in a later blog but I couldn't resist popping a couple of newspaper clippings here. The article to the left is my first fixture, Rangers Youth A v St Budeaux Athletic with fellow Burrington School first team players and good friends Nigel Thorne and Sam Sanderson getting what must have been their first fixtures too. On reflection there are some other names on the fixtures that day that were soon to become very good friends. Referees, Allan Roserveare, Vic Mason and Larry Hambly, who is the other linesman in the photo above. There was also a certain Brian Marshall on duty that day at Saltash he was a a very strong influence and an ex football league ref, sadly he died before I left Plymouth in 89.
