PART I: THE REALITY CHECK
IF becoming a boxer requires a degree of dreaming, denial and delusion, it’s fair to say becoming a referee requires quite the opposite. For them, the referee, rather than embracing the fantasy of reaching the top and ignoring the possibility of pain and disappointment, they must instead confront reality early on and understand that any “success” in this profession will not be success in the traditional sense. Forget rewards. Forget fame. Forget success. You are, as the third man in the ring, never thanked, much less celebrated. You are also, if a successful referee, mostly ignored.
This was a reality made clear to the nine candidates who shuffled, somewhat coyly, into a conference room at the Leonardo Royal on a chilly December morning in central London. It was a point made initially by Dennis Gilmartin, the Southern Area Secretary, and one repeated with emphasis by both Robert Smith, the General Secretary of the British Boxing Board of Control, and Richard Barber, the referees’ representative from the Southern Area Council. In agreement, the plan was for each of them to give it to these nine potential candidates straight, with the ultimate aim, that morning and later that afternoon (when another seven candidates entered the same room), of then reducing the number of names on the sheet in front of Gilmartin. It was the first time this process had happened in seven and a half years. In that time, Chas Coakley, Lee Every and Mark Bates, all of whom went through the process, have become A Class referees.
“I’m a big believer in sticking all the doom and gloom in and then if they want to go away, so be it,” said Robert Smith, after which Gilmartin added: “Today’s not about finding a referee. Today’s about getting rid of numbers. We started with 42 and we have had to whittle them down. At this stage we’re basically looking for any alarm bells and red flags. That’s it.”
Thursday, the day was granted exclusive access, was the very first step. Once it was over, each of the candidates interviewed would receive a letter notifying them whether or not they had beenhe successful ones would progress to the second part of the process and the unsuccessful ones would either lick their wounds or perhaps be encouraged to take up a role as a Board inspector.
