Fit for purpose, George Courtney makes half century as referee

It’s just that a reader recommended the breakfasts.

The cynical, if not the clinical, might also suppose that a piece on the man widely reckoned one of the world’s best football referees might more properly belong to the Backtrack column. It’s just that that one’s oversubscribed.

Besides, George is celebrated far beyond football. He was a highachieving headmaster, a high profile golf club captain, tennis opponent of Fr John Caden – the greatly loved parish priest of Sedgefield, whose funeral is at noon today – and of Tony Blair.

“They were a formidable pair to play against, especially as they had the Lord on their side in any disputed calls,” he remembers.

It’s football, however, which inscribes his latest milestone. Next week in Durham he will receive four separate awards to acknowledge 50 years’ service to refereeing, a passion which, at 71, he still athletically and energetically pursues.

“I’ll carry on until I become an embarrassment,” he says. “I like to hope I have a good two or three years yet.”

He refereed in two World Cup finals, had charge of three European finals and two in Asia, became familiar at Wembley, was awarded the MBE for services to football. These days they’re mostly youth games on public parks.

Isn’t it a problem that most of those taking part won’t know who he is? “If they don’t I soon tell them,” says George, just as he told the under-12s captain who looked up at him and said “Hello, mate.”

“Let’s get one thing straight,” said the generally avuncular man in black. “I’m not your mate.”

It’s Saturday morning. The following day, short sleeves whatever the weather, the man who has officiated at almost every major football stadium in the world will take charge of Spennymoor Under-18s on a soggy pasture next to the allotments.

“I love it,” he says, “but I’m also very happy to help out.”

HE wears a smart tracksuit that identifies him as a FIFA instructor, walks as always with spring in his steps, addresses staff at Chimneys restaurant as darling.

It’s all but deserted, no waiting times at Bishop General. Were it otherwise, were the tables overflowing half way to urgent care, the odds are that George would not only recognise two-thirds of them but know their names, their mothers’ maiden names and the last time he’d cause to show a family member a yellow card.

“I’ve a photographic memory. It’s very helpful when you’re a referee,” he says.

He was born in Page Bank, the former pit village near Spennymoor that was all but washed away in the great flood of 1967, now lives a couple of miles away in Middlestone Moor and vows never to leave the Spennymoor area.

“My roots go deep,” he says. Margaret, his wife, is a headteacher in Newton Aycliffe.

He played in the Auckland and District League for ENV Rovers, an Aycliffe factory side – “lazy but quite classy” – decided that he was likely to go further as a referee, first whet his whistle in 1962 in a youth game on Cockton Hill Rec in Bishop Auckland – a pitch traversed by a public footpath.

“Every few minutes I’d be stopping the match to let a little old lady get across with her shopping bags, I’d restart with a dropped ball: that was the correct decision.”

Though he continued to play on alternate Saturdays for ENV, and on Sundays for the Wear Valley pub side, refereeing quickly took over.

“I’d go everywhere by bus, right up Weardale if need be, maybe not home until eight or nine o’clock. It didn’t matter, I was single in those days.”

Some may have doubted his paternity, few his ability or his agility. He’s only ever missed one game through injury. “I have a simple philosophy.

You only have one body and you have to look after it. Admittedly part of it’s egotistical – you look in the mirror, see a little tummy bulge and know you have to do something about it.”

Though the butcher’s dog expression is frequently reckoned of his own coining, he supposes it much older. “Certainly my father used it, probably a lot of people his age did.

I quite like it, even so.”

BUTCHER’S dog with a bone, he quickly made his mark.

Soon he was a Northern League linesman, refereed the Northern League Cup final was he was 30, fell foul of formidable league secretary Gordon Nicholson after allowing one of the teams to wear different socks from those in the programme.

“I got a stiff letter telling me that if I did it again, my career was finished,”

he recalls. “Gordon was in charge of socks, not me.”

Nine years after deferring to elderly shoppers on Cockton Hill Rec, he was a Football League linesman.

On Boxing Day 1974, he refereed his first Football League game, Leicester City v Derby County, shown on Match of the Day. While deputy head of Vane Road Primary School in Newton Aycliffe, he was appointed in 1977 to FIFA. It was to prove a whole new world.

When the retirement age was 47, the FA three times extended it so that he could continue. His last top flight game was a Wembley play-off final – until now the oldest man to have charge of a major game at the national stadium.

In April, however, Co Durham police officer Nigel Miller, 53, will referee the Johnstone’s Paint final. “I’m absolutely thrilled for him,” says George. “There are some great young referees and that’s the way it should be, but there’s ageism, too. You mustn’t eliminate experience.”

NATIONALLY and internationally, he became an assessor and match delegate, now assesses the assessors and has “friendship circles” around the world. Back at the grass roots, on the pasture next to the allotments, he’s trying to get youngsters to enjoy their football.

Though forbidden to wear his FIFA badges – “I can wear them on my pyjamas, not on my refereeing apparel” – he still cuts an authoritative figure.

It’s eight years, he thinks, since he sent anyone off in local football.

“I still do the business, talk to the boys beforehand, tell them what I want and what I’m looking for. It’s the language that’s still the biggest problem.

“Some of them might wonder who the silly old bugger is, but it’s about getting them on your side. I try my best to keep them on the field, that’s where they belong. It hurts me just as much as it hurts them if someone’s sent off.

“It’s about man management, about trying to inject a little humour into the game. I think that’s sadly lacking.”

Appropriately, the chat lasts 90 minutes. Much of his breakfast remains uneaten, a reflection not on quality but on calorie. There are football matches to referee.

So how would he like to be remembered?

“As someone who was fair,” he says at once. “Fair and fit.

Not a bad epitaph. That’ll do.”