The impossible job made possible, the reality of being a 77-year-old grassroots referee

From a life-threatening brain haemorrhage at 70, to refereeing six days a week at 77, this is the story of grassroots referee Roger Brown.

Saturday evening, March 2016, 70-year-old referee Roger Brown returned home from refereeing, wasting no time getting to his local social club in Cheam village. Five days later, he found himself lying in an unfamiliar setting; it was St. George’s Hospital, and Roger had had a brain haemorrhage. Thirty minutes after waking, the phone went; it was the Academy Director of AFC Wimbledon. “We’ve got a game; could you ref and get two assistants?,” he said. Roger replied: “I’d love to, but I’m in St. George’s; I’ve had a brain haemorrhage; but leave it with me.” Despite enduring the most traumatic event of a person’s life, Roger, from his hospital bed, ensured Wimbledon had three officials, because that’s the kind of man Roger is: selfless.

Seven years later, the silver sign, which reads “Referee’s Retreat”, remains brandished unapologetically to the side of the door leading to the residence of Brown. Pictures of post-Second World War Dundee, where Roger was born, fill the hallway. The living room is basic but has the warm feeling you’d expect from a retreat. In the corner on the wall is a picture of Dundee United winning the Scottish Cup, one of 50 in existence; below it is an array of refereeing trophies. A single newspaper cutting, almost seven decades old, pictures Roger’s first football team.

From Chingola, Zambia, to Holland and Belgium, the 77-year-old referee has lived an extraordinary life. “Up until I was 65, I was in civil structure engineering, creating designs and working on a few projects,” he said. However, modesty is one of Roger’s defining characteristics, and in fact, his work involved developing the London Eye, Falkirk Wheel, and London Blackfriars Station. The proud Scotsman even spent time at the second-largest open-cast mine in the world, the Nchanga mine in Zambia.

Most parents of the 400 teams playing in the Surrey Youth League (SYL) hate refereeing or running the line in the early hours of a Sunday morning. Unsurprisingly, this is how Roger’s refereeing journey began. “My son was playing in the SYL; they were short of refs, and they’d ask me,” he said, and following two cartilage operations to his knee but a desire to do sport, refereeing was ideal. “I did the course at Cheam High, one night a week for 13 weeks, and qualified,” he said.

Almost a quarter of a century later, “Roger” and “Brown” are the two most closely associated words with refereeing in the boroughs of Sutton and Croydon. It is a well-known and respected name, with over 20 schools, football clubs, and academies relying on Roger and his team of 40 referees. “Most days I spend the morning at the kitchen table, appointing referees, working out who is and isn’t available, doing the invoices, then Tuesday to Sunday I’m refereeing games,” he said.

Despite a Radio Five Live questionnaire conducted earlier this year, finding nearly 98% of the 927 respondents, members of the Referee’s Association, had received verbal abuse, and roughly a third had received physical abuse. Roger revealed, rather refreshingly, that he’d never received serious abuse: “Generally, the games I do, the schools, clubs, leagues, the players know me,” he said.

According to the FA, there are 24,500 active referees in England, with around 7,000 leaving each year after encountering challenges on the pitch. For Roger, this has never been the case; instead, it was his own body that threatened his main passion in life. “After two games on a Sunday, my leg felt a bit funny,” he said. “In the morning, it was swollen, hot, and hard,” he added. Scans at St. Helier Hospital revealed two pulmonary embolisms. “They kept me in for a bit, and I was back refereeing after a few weeks,” he recalled, but soon after he suffered a brain haemorrhage. Following a six-month recovery, Roger fondly remembered: “I was down doing a game at Wimbledon on a Monday, which happens to be when all the coaches meet; they came out because they all knew I was in, and [they] applauded me.”

Unfortunately, the discovery of a deep vein thrombosis would follow in September, along with a small amniotic aneurysm a few months later. Reflecting, Roger remarked upon the importance of his relationship with his grandchildren: “I pick them up from school on Mondays and go there on a Friday, staying over until the Saturday,” he said. “When they were born, I opened an account for each of them, putting some of the money I get from refereeing into it for them,” he added. Smiling, Roger explained: “It’s nice to see them progressing, and when I leave Earth, I know I’ve done my bit.”

Approaching 78, Roger has no intention of stopping: “I’ll keep going; who’s to say, maybe 80?”. Grinning mischievously, he said: “When I renewed my referee’s registration, I put my age 10 years younger.”

With so much controversy surrounding refereeing, from VAR to the shortage of referees at grassroots level, 90% under 21 experiencing abuse, Roger’s story will hopefully inspire the next generation of those taking up the whistle. “Like everything else, we get it wrong,” he said. “But even in the Premiership, they get it wrong; sometimes I say, let me check that on VAR; that breaks the ice and gets a laugh.”