Chin-Chinnery, Chin-Chinnery, Chin chin sheree

In a new segment, we invited long serving and all round wonderful guy Lord David Chinnery to share with us his memoirs of his time at Norway Cup and his astonishing career as a referee. He is so wonderful, he gets a private suite, blags an invite to all things royalty and always has the best tan which is copyrighted by Ronseal.

In 1961 I met Heather and we married in 1965. I was playing as a central defender for Fonnereau Athletic in the Ipswich & District League. We bought our first house and money was very tight. Upon the arrival of our baby daughter Heather was concerned about me getting a football injury. In 1966 I was persuaded to take up refereeing by a work colleague John “Snowy” Osbourne who officiated on the F A 1st Division.

In 1970 I was promoted from Class3 to Class 2 (old system) and we moved to Maldonado and then onto Chelmsford and I continued to referee on the Essex Senior league and obtained my Class 1 but under the new system I was transferred to Class 5(Senior County Referee).

I retired from work in 1993 with a redundancy package.

In 1996 I volunteered to work on the Euro96 and was appointed as chauffeur for the whole competition. I was based at the FA HQ in Kensington Palace hotel. I had a wonderful time apart from driving around London with trips to Man Utd, Sheffield, meet and greet FIFA guests at airports, police and media meetings plus Free tickets to all Wembley matches.

At the end of the competition I was selected as FA personal chauffeur to the African Confederation delegation whose Chairman Issa Hayatou was a Vice President of FIFA and I had a wonderful hospitality day at Wimbledon and even taking him on a shopping trip and a sightseeing tour. A super 3 weeks of football activity meeting many celebrities with great stories.

In 1996 I was invited to referee in the USA Cup so off I went and had a final and a good time. In 1997 Heather joined me but carried on her journey to Salt Lake City to visit her relations and after the competition finished in Maine I joined her and we spent a few weeks touring around. During this time I heard about the Norway Cup so in 1998 off I went to Oslo. I arrived at the Brannfjell school and found a big room with an American referee in there. We went for a walk to check out things and when we returned we had 12 young Norwegian referees in the room and we made a set of room rules which went very well but we did eject one lad.

Kjell Kleivin was in charge of the referee dept and I had an excellent time refereeing and was rewarded with a final line. The finals then were held at the Bislet stadium and I received my medal from the President of the Norway Football Federation and felt very honoured. The next year 1998 Heather joined me and we had a nice little room just for us. After the competition we went travelling around for a week.

During our time in Norway we have made many friends especially Børre Kristensen and Lucy Thoresen the Press Officer who requested me to referee several special matches. I had to host and take care of Patrick Viera and Heather looked after his lady friend. The match was between Patricks team from Senegal and a Norwegian team and Patrick performed the official kick off. He was very good with everybody and gave presentation talks on ‘Kick racism out’ and ‘Aids’.

Another match was a 7 a side involving Norway celebrities and a Brazilian under 19 team and I was told to make something funny happen so Lucy could report it in the Oslo papers. In the second half the Mayor of Oslo was in goal and was joined by a young lady. During the play I issued a red card to her and awarded a penalty which left the Mayor in goal looking petrified but he put his arms up and pushed the ball over the bar for a super save. This incident provided a good laugh and a story for the press.

In 2000 we purchased a lovely house in Kas in Turkey and I got known as a referee and got invited to referee in the Kasaba Village competition which involved 13 local villages split into 2 divisions and the top 2 teams in each progressed to the semi finals.

I refereed every match and at times it was very unpleasant and difficult and hot. Some days I did 2 or 3 matches on the trot. In one final the teams went to war and I issued 15 yellow cards and 4 red cards. I had no problems with the players as they respected my decisions but were not used to having a qualified referee. The Jandarma had a guard on every corner post and 2 on the gate entrance and 6 within the high fence area around the pitch. At the end they escorted Heather and I to my car before anyone could move but we did not feel threatened as we know a lot of the players. I felt a little pressure but safe.

I volunteered to referee this competition for 5 years but in the last year because they started the competition late I could only do half of the matches and there was very bad discipline and the next year nobody would organise the competition.

My remuneration for this was a car load of wood as logs of wood are expensive here and in the mountain villages wood is free for the people.

In 2011 I travelled to Tanzania to referee in the East African Cup. This was a very different situation and not very organised and not many matches to referee as most of you know I like to keep busy. I was glad Heather did not join me on this trip as the whole visit would not have been good for her but it was an interesting experience for me but I was about the only white person in the town. We started everyday with a short prayer service and then 1 hour of teaching the youngsters the laws of football. It was the referees responsibility to mark out the pitch prior to the match.

In 2005 I refereed in Gran Canaria on a not very friendly match between a team from Linekers bar in Puerto Rico and from a bar in Playa de Ingles which was live on the local radio station. Both teams agreed on a sin bin discipline system which I found very useful. They all enjoyed themselves and it finished with a penalty shoot out.

In 2018 after 52 years as a referee I decided that my body was hurting and my legs would not allow me to keep up with play and do justice to the players and the match. I decided to be a Norway Cup Assessor to which I was very apprehensive but after understanding the system I found it very enjoyable and less tiring. I realised how nice it was to help and advise the younger referees as they want to listen and learn.