The Official Line
As Ashes tours come and go, column inches devoted to cricket inevitably centre on the 22 blokes set to slug it out over 22 yards in the middle. Rightly so. But what about the other performers, those who will make crunch decisions that can swing a contest one way or another? Kieran Longworth speaks to three officials – from cricket, golf and sailing – about the art of staying cool when the pressure reaches boiling point.
left Arsenal visit Chelsea, January 1930. Captains A.N. Wilson and T.R. Parker shake hands in front of referee W.G. Hodkinson.
The Ashes, like other long-lasting and calendar-defining series in sport, always has been and always will be played on two fronts. There’s the action on the pitch and the visceral competition that often flares up as a result of it.
One person who knows a fair bit about both sides of the Anglo-Australian equation is Chris Broad. The former England opening batsman was voted Man of the Series – and International Cricketer of the Year – after the 1986/87 series triumph in Australia, where he top-scored with 487 runs and three centuries. For much of the intervening period, he has stood at the junction of judgement and consequence as a match referee. As we speak, the Nottinghamshire man is on his way to a Friday luncheon. On the county’s B-roads, so to speak.
Opening up, the former left-hand bat says, “Officiating actually chose me. I was working in an office job when John Carr, from what was then the Test and County Cricket Board (TCCB), phoned and asked if I’d be interested in becoming a match referee for the ICC.” (Incidentally Carr, a right-arm off-break bowler and middle-order bat for Middlesex, was born in St John’s Wood, in a house that backed onto ‘The Home of Cricket’.)
“At that point, I wasn’t actually sure what a match referee did,” the 68-year-old admits. Sympathetic to the uninformed, ‘Broady’ elaborates: “Referees sit separate to umpires and ensure that cricket’s Code of Conduct is upheld during international fixtures. The title of match referee is a bit of a misnomer if I’m being honest. ‘Match manager’ might have been better.
“Sat alongside the third umpire, our brief was to stay out of it. We could interject but you have to write a report on the umpire later, and you can’t be seen to have helped them make a decision. So, I tended to stay out of it.
Suited and booted, Chris Broad man’s the toss at the Kia Oval in 2021.
“The role came about because the ICC had asked for home boards to put forward candidates, and they thought I’d be a good fit. So, taking leave from my job in Nottingham at the time, I went down to Lord’s for an interview with Malcolm Speed and Sunil Gavaskar, who were ICC Chief Executive and Chairman of Cricket. I didn’t get a frontline post initially. I was put on the reserve list – given a uniform, which was nice, and told to stand by. I waited about 18 months before my first appointment. From there, I didn’t stop.”
That first call-up came in a three-match series between New Zealand and Pakistan in 2004. Which is where the ‘Broady’ picks up the story: “As a family, we’d booked to go to South Africa for Christmas. The ICC called after we’d paid for it. I flew to South Africa, stayed one night, and then flew on to New Zealand the next day. It clearly wasn’t the best timing but I felt if I’d said no, I might not get another chance.
“At the time, the position was a relatively new one and took some getting used to – for both players and umpires that is. The fact that I’d played international cricket helped enormously and that was part of the ICC’s criteria – to understand the pressures players face.
“It’s not for me to say if I was good at it, but I think the general perception was that I was ‘tough but fair’ – and I’ll take that. For me, that is what the role is all about. Coming from a country that believes in right and wrong, fairness was the attitude I took into the job. It didn’t always suit everyone, but I had great support from the ICC in Dubai and stayed for two decades.
“Being in that environment again was a joy. You’re working with the best players in the world. The tricky bit initially was that the umpires felt they’d lost some of their authority. Match referees were new, and a few of them thought, ‘Who’s this bloke telling us how to do our jobs?’ That was understandable, to be fair. “It took a couple of years before everyone As Ashes tours come and go, column inches devoted to cricket inevitably centre on the 22 blokes set to slug it out over 22 yards in the middle. Rightly so. But what about the other performers, those who will make crunch decisions that can swing a contest one way or another? Kieran Longworth speaks to three officials – from cricket, golf and sailing – about the art of staying cool when the pressure reaches boiling point. left Arsenal visit Chelsea, January 1930. Captains A.N. Wilson and T.R. Parker shake hands in front of referee W.G. Hodkinson. Suited and booted, Chris Broad man’s the toss at the Kia Oval in 2021. OFFICIATING OFFICIATING 96 97 fully understood what the Playing Control Team (PCT) was and accepted the new structure. And by that time there was a new force to be reckoned with: DRS.”
Still in the car, and now passing Nottinghamshire’s Papplewick and Linby Cricket Club – his location disclosed by a sudden loss of signal – Broad continues his train of thought. Albeit intermittently, technology on this occasion letting us down.
“The implementation of the review system was a tricky time for the umpires,” he says. “I could understand why the game was moving forward, but they didn’t like being told that they were wrong. No one enjoys that. Thankfully, over time, technology has taken a lot of pressure away from standing umpires. People rarely talk about bad decisions as much as they used to; the sense of bias is largely out of the window. It’s all about players’ performances, the result of which is always fair.
“I think the game, more generally, has improved significantly. Scoring rates are higher, Tests are more entertaining, and spectators are getting value for money. People complain about slow over rates, but those 83 overs you get in a day are full of runs and wickets, we’ve had some great cricket of late.
“The relationship between players has changed, they seem to know each other far better now and are often teammates in franchise competitions. So, you don’t get quite the same animosity you might have had in the past, which makes the job of match referee a little easier.
Chris Broad speaks with India captain M.S. Dhoni in Goa, 2010.
“That said, in series like the Ashes, there’s always a bit of spice – and that’s good. You need it. Understanding those boundaries is vital as an official; you need to know when it’s banter and when the line is crossed.
“Take the England-India series just gone,” Chris continues, with reference to the 2-2 draw that concluded with Chris Woakes batting with one arm at The Oval. “It was brilliant! I didn’t have a problem with any of it. A few heated moments, sure, but it was all fair-spirited. I’d hate to see cricket become so sanitised that there’s no emotion. Passion is part of what makes sport great. As long as it’s contained, a bit of edge only adds to the entertainment.
‘‘I could understand why the game was moving forward, but they didn’t like being told that they were wrong’’
“The challenge will be the same in Australia where England will come up against good pitches, hostile crowds, and some world-class players. The First Test is always crucial – whoever wins in Perth has the upper hand. My only concern is lack of match practice before that first Test. But Brendan McCullum and Ben Stokes know their players, they’ve had great success over their tenure and long may that continue.
“Unfortunately for me, I don’t have TNT Sports, so won’t be able to watch it! Which leaves more time for golf, I suppose.”
On the topic, and with that non subscription a surprising admission from one of the game’s ‘lifers’, another sport enters the proverbial spotlight through the lens of another calendar-defining occasion – the Ryder Cup.
“It wasn’t very golf, was it?” opens PGA fellow Robert Simpson on America’s noisy showing in New York. “Don’t get me wrong, the drama was fantastic, but I’m quite glad I wasn’t out there in the thick of it.”
Robert Simpson refereeing the PGA Championship.
Simpson speaks in a soft tone, at a volume that feels appropriate for any club pro shop or neighbouring tee box. He’s wearing a black crew neck and a poppy lapel. The rules official is speaking from Kedleston Park Golf Club in Derbyshire, where he is positioned as general manager; his delightful course presents a considerably quieter scene than the one at Bethpage. Simpson’s career in refereeing has seen him man two Ryder Cups – first at Gleneagles and then Paris in 2018 – the PGA Championship, and a whole host of European Tour events in between.
“The R&A were keen to keep our education as professionals. They offered some courses and that’s how I got into refereeing. I attended that first lesson – which was about how to set up a course for tournament play – and fell in love with it from the off.”
What started as a behind-the-scenes interest turned into a full refereeing qualification by 2002, which is where Simpson continues: “You start by shadowing a referee, and then you attend by yourself – ‘off you go’, they say. ‘Do your thing’. And as you get more experienced, the tournaments get bigger.
“If you take something like the Ryder Cup, there are three types of official. There’s the head referee, who oversees play and deals with any major issues. Then there are referees who go out to set the pins and tees. Finally, you have officials appointed to each match. Any decision that needs making in that match, that official makes. They can ask for a second opinion from the chief referee if they’re not 100 per cent sure, but it’s their word that is final.
“When you scale up to major U.S. tournaments like the PGA, you often have one referee per hole. So, any ruling on that hole is their responsibility. And they’re expected to learn the intricacies like the back of their hand. It’s all fairly straightforward,” Simpson concludes. And after spending the best part of 24 years in the trade, to him, that might be true.
Like in any sport, technology has changed things in golf too. Players today are hitting the ball on average 30 yards further off the tee than 40 years ago, courses are getting longer, and the eyes on the ball – since the emergence of Tiger Woods at the turn of the century – have only multiplied. But when asked about how refereeing itself has evolved, Simpson’s answer is resolute. “Not much,” he says, “it’s going the other way, really.”
His comments bear reference to the proposed changes to roll back the golf ball made in 2023, after the R&A and USGA announced that all professionals will be required to use a modified version from 2028.
“There was an instance a few years ago with Pádraig Harrington where his ball oscillated slightly and he was penalised because of what was seen on high-definition TV. Now, the rule has changed: a ball is only considered to have moved if it’s visible to the naked eye. I think that’s a sensible outcome, despite the fact that it undermines those expensive cameras to some extent.
“We saw the same at Bethpage Black with Tyrell Hatton and John Rahm’s ball on the opening Saturday. When the Englishman stood on a stick, his Titleist oscillated. ‘Did they gain advantage from that?’ is the first question the referee needs to ask. And for me, if the answer is no, play on.”
Don’t worry [about the crowds] there are only three billion people watching
at home
PGA CEO to Rob Simpson on the first tee at Gleneagles in 2014
The aim in refereeing, Simpson continues, “is to make the game fair for the entire field. The rules have evolved to make sure situations like that are treated sensibly and fairly for the player.”
Without wanting to brush over his experiences refereeing the Euro-American competition – dubbed golf’s answer to the Ashes – once prodded again, Simpson was more than happy to open up about how he felt when given the call up.
“I was scared to death,” he says, meaning every part of it. “And to make matters worse, when I was stood on the tee at Gleneagles in 2014, the Chief Executive of the PGA was standing next to me and said, ‘Don’t worry, there are only three billion people watching.’ (Thanks for that!) Oddly it helped, despite being a small exaggeration from a numbers’ perspective,” he says. For those interested, 8.8 million tuned into the biennial competition when it was on in September.
“But it’s true, those tuning in don’t want to watch me get involved. They’re there to watch good golf. My role is not to influence the outcome and to ensure there is absolutely no controversy that gets in the way. The pressure keeps you sharp. And there’s a lot of preparation beforehand. We were sent course notes, captains’ agreements, everything.”
That preparation, he says, “includes walking the course for potential trouble spots” – which, as the events get bigger and more ‘important’, become less of an issue. “The courses are so well manicured, there’s hardly a damp patch. You check with greenkeepers where water might collect, or how the wind might affect play, which hospitality tents might need space for relief – and where the field should drop if they end up in someone’s all-expenses-paid box. By the time I go out on the course, I’ve mapped out a hole-by-hole playbook, like a caddie would.
“I enjoyed that first Ryder Cup more when it had finished. It’s only when you get home and watch the highlights that you can fully appreciate the scale of the event.
Rory McIlroy – who Simpson would later referee in Paris – looks for his ball with with former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley at The Open in 2018.
“There have, of course, been a few moments in my career where more proactive intervention was required. Such is the nature of sport, and the complexity of golf. At Gleneagles, two players hit drives that finished exactly the same distance from the hole, 146 yards to be precise. We had to toss a coin to decide who played first, which is rare, but it felt fair in that case. Of course, hitting first in match play can be a momentum changer.
“Then in France, 2018, I was refereeing Rory McIlroy’s match. Having avoided any scent of intervention in the 17 holes prior, the Northern Irishman’s ball found itself on the downslope of a penalty area on the 18th. At that time (a rule that has been changed since) you couldn’t move natural objects like loose impediments, so I had to be careful with what I said to the world number one. There was a moment where a feather – a fake one from an American hat – encroached his ball. With Rory about to take his shot, I interrupted and said he could move it because it wasn’t a natural object – a nuance in the rules.
“Those little things happen, and you have to be prepared for when they do. The last thing you want to do is distract a player midround, or worse earn them a penalty.”
For those who can remember, Rory stuck that ball to within 20 feet and Ian ‘The Postman’ Poulter sunk the proceeding putt. Butterfly effect, maybe. Made for a fair result, nonetheless. And Europe ended 17½–10½ the victors in France.
Where golf errs on the conservative side, if there was ever a sport making proverbial waves in umpiring’s steady waters, racing’s SailGP would top the list.
The leader of SailGP’s version of VAR, Craig Mitchell is the sport’s chief umpire, and in many ways, it’s a thankless task. Having caught wind of a feature I was writing on the emergence of the sport; the race official was more than keen to help out.
“We’re umpires, not referees,” Craig opens up, “we don’t intervene unless asked. No question, no answer. Sometimes teams decide not to protest if they’re unsure or think it’s not worth it.” Craig joins us in the aftermath of what was a hectic fleet weekend of umpiring in Portsmouth. His experience in ‘the bunker’ matched up to the action on the water, by all accounts.
“When you’ve got 12 boats jammed into a small race zone, it gets pretty busy. People say, ‘Oh, you can’t do that there, sailing’s supposed to be out over the horizon.’ But this isn’t – this is live, right in front of people which only adds to the spectacle. And the difficulty of my job.
“Traditional sailing rules – like those used at the Olympics – date back to 1875, when the British and Americans started aligning systems. By about 1912, they’d standardised things. The rules we use for SailGP were written around 12–13 years ago and have evolved ever since. We’re always asking how we can make it clearer and less mysterious for spectators.” It’s his crew's job to spot infringements during races and dish out penalties. Leading the team of six, the chief umpire is the face of the organisation: communicating decisions live on TV and often fronting up afterwards to explain them. For cricket fans of a certain vintage, he’s SailGP’s Dickie Bird, or (himself a rugby fan) the Nigel Owens of sailing, so to speak.
“I’m the face of the organisation,” he says. “Or the dart board.” Search Mitchell’s name online and find a YouTube catalogue dedicated to explaining his decisions. This is refereeing redefined.
“If we make a mistake, as humans, and we can fix it in time, then we cancel the penalty,” Mitchell elaborates. For the uninitiated, penalties in SailGP, like in Formula 1, often mean teams are told to give the position back – or if required – suffer a time punishment where they are frozen in the water.
“It’s happened a few times, and with the sport only an infant, will no doubt happen again,” he says, somewhat undermining the adage that the ‘referee is always right’ in sport, in what feels like an evolution of the role. Sometimes, like in life, you just have to agree to disagree.
“We’re shaping the sport as we go, simplifying it where we can, and relying on data from our tracking systems. If something can’t be measured or seen on tracking, it’s hard to judge. So, we focus on what’s visible, understandable, and consistent.
RedBull Italy SailGP team joined the league at the beginning of the 2025 season.
“Onboard, the boats have got incredible technology – weapons-grade GPS, compasses accurate to a thousandth of a degree, and software that tells us exactly where the start line is. It predicts, based on speed and direction, when they’ll cross it. But it’s still not automatic – conditions like gusty wind and foiling changes make it tricky.”
This tech that Mitchell and his team lean on is called UmpApp. The software shows the F50 carbon-fibre catamarans’ position via the same trackers that are used in missiles, accurate to within 2.5 centimetres.
It’s a system that takes “a lot of stress out of it”, according to Mitchell. “Each umpire watches specific boats, and we communicate constantly about who’s covering what. It all happens so quickly; you must be on the money straight away. The system we have built is a huge pattern recognition engine. Knowing which boats are moving fast, which relationships might cause conflict, and anticipating where the next issue will come from is all part and parcel of being on the front foot as an umpiring team.”
All this, he says, “is run from a small office in Ealing. When we first started, the live-line equipment went around the world in a container – half for the broadcast team and half for the umpires. When that setup became permanent, they parked the container in a car park in Ealing, and that became our home.
“Data comes via hubs in London, Tokyo and San Francisco, so ironically, being in London is faster for us than being on-site in Australia, Abu Dhabi, or wherever the travelling circus would take us. However disappointing that might sound.
“We sit about one second behind reality – to make sure all our data and video feeds line up. TV is another half-second behind that so when we make a decision, it’s already a second old.
“Time zones are tough. Working between 2 a.m. to 8 a.m. gives you a lot of respect for anyone who does night shifts. I call it ‘Ealing lag’ – like jet lag, but without the tan.”
With the role now seeming a little bit less appealing, as if to sell his position, the umpire elaborates on what characteristics are required to do it well: “It’s my view that if you’ve done high-level sailing, you’ll make a good official. In any sport you need people who know how the game works, because that gives you anticipation of what’s going to happen… and knowledge of why things are happening.”
“I think baseball has started doing announcements in the stadium, cricket and rugby too. I’ll press a button to let the broadcasters know I’m about to speak, although not all the decisions will be broadcast, depending on how important they are to the race, but the teams are always told.
“We also have contact with the teams before a race with a pre-race briefing, then an online debrief at the start of the next event. The accuracy from our part is pretty good, as it should be. And we should be held accountable to that. There’s nothing we don’t have at our disposal.”
This conclusion from Mitchell feels a wholly modern one. And it raises the question: where is refereeing going? Or should we call it umpiring? Either way, in this land nuanced by the difference between laws and rules – where entire books have been written about those very definitions – don’t forget the people in the middle next time the whistle blows, or the finger goes up. It’s a whole process, clearly, and one not taken lightly by those in charge.
As to who’s got the best approach, in covering the three sports here that we have, we’ll let you decide. Across cricket, golf and sailing, the same balancing act is evident: how much should officials intervene; when should technology be the final arbiter; and how do you preserve the spectacle fans come to see? VAR, DRS, UmpApp – all answer practical questions, but none remove the need for judgment. Technology has altered the role, yes, not erased it by any means.
VAR, huh? What is it good for? A lot, it may seem.