There are plenty of amusing rugby anecdotes in Wayne Barnes’s highly readable new autobiography, Throwing the Book. Not least the time, early in his top-level refereeing career, when he had to send England’s World Cup-winning captain Martin Johnson to the sin-bin for an illegal smash on London Irish’s Delon Armitage. Johnno, having regained his feet, fixed the youthful official with his best death stare and said: “That’s the only fucking decision you’ve got right so far.”
Then there was the blokey greeting he often received from the Harlequins and England prop Joe Marler in the changing room before matches. “I’ll get it out of the way and call you a twat now, to save myself from getting sent off.” Or the time in 2007 when, following the infamous “forward pass” episode in the New Zealand v France quarter-final, he attended the semi-final as “Jimmy Barnes” in a platinum blond wig, fake moustache and giant sunglasses.
How fortunate that Barnes has a well-developed sense of humour. Without it he would have struggled to enjoy such a long and distinguished whistling career, spanning 111 Tests. As befitting his “other” life as a barrister, he knew the laws but, crucially, also had the empathetic bedside manner. It is the reason he and Nigel Owens were the two pre-eminent referees of their generation. They understood that good refereeing is about more than just being right all the time.
But if the international game was collectively blessed to have Barnes at the helm for so long, it was also hugely lucky from a PR perspective. Because he is such a good guy – and in such apparent control amid all the surrounding madness – it was almost too easy for rugby’s movers and shakers to hide behind the unflappable image he projected to the outside world. Until now. His book lays bare some of the more disturbing aspects of the modern game, at which point the fun abruptly dries up.
How many people, for example, could remain unaffected by people threatening to burn their house down with their family inside it or hoping their kids die of cancer? Barnes tells of one world-renowned coach wondering publicly if he had been involved in match-fixing. Of high-ranking French officials storming into his dressing room to yell at him. Of routinely being told he was useless by complete strangers. “I’ve never headbutted, punched, screamed or shouted yet it’s me who gets accused of ruining games,” writes Barnes, pointedly.
Welcome to Wayne’s world, where shocking verbal abuse and death threats long ago replaced the occasional quip about guide dogs and white sticks. Which is why his book should be required reading for everyone, both in rugby union and sport more generally. Administrators, coaches, players, fans, media types and television executives will all find lines in it that make them stop and think.
Because while Barnes, who grew up on a council estate in the Forest of Dean, has a decent line in self-deprecation, the 44-year-old’s legal brain is also naturally suited to uncovering the truth. “Sometimes rugby officials don’t know if they are coming or going,” he says, suggesting the game’s leading referees often felt they had to carry the can for ill-conceived or poorly timed initiatives foisted on them with minimal notice. Whether it be tackle height, bunker reviews, breakdown interpretations or stroppy national captains, there are plenty of reasons why the job of a top referee grows steadily more demanding.
Barnes, because he prefers to look on the bright side of life, does not personally believe the game is necessarily heading to hell in a garishly sponsored handcart. He wants to see more attention focused on the qualities of resilience, discipline, tolerance and sociability that can still set rugby apart. He reckons cricket, where players who publicly dispute on-field decisions are docked a percentage of their match fee, may be able to teach its oval-ball cousin a lesson or two.
Crucially, though, he would like rugby’s authorities to become less fixated “on the small things and getting everything right” and to concentrate more on developing an overarching philosophy that enhances the bigger picture. “What the lawbook doesn’t contain is an overriding principle which should be: keep the game going by blowing your whistle as little as possible,” stresses Barnes. It may sound counter-intuitive but, in the eyes of new fans, a sport with 19 sub-laws about the ruck alone is self-evidently at risk of drowning in the volume of its own fine detail.
And what joy, ultimately, is there to be had in a world of micro-scrutiny, endless slow-motion replays and puce-faced coaches? Where the spirit and soul of the game is increasingly obscured by the arm-waving protestations of humourless dullards? Or the screech of vicious social media trolls? Barnes’s book could have read like the kind of dust-dry legal textbook he once studied as a student at the University of East Anglia. Instead he has reminded us all that sport is played – and refereed – by human beings. And underlined how much rugby owes to people such as him.
Throwing the Book: the Strifes and Crimes of a Rugby Referee, by Wayne Barnes, is published by Constable (£25).
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