 In early July, I experienced two firsts simultaneously - a live Rugby Football League (RFL) game and the chance to shadow a video referee. The game in question was the Tetley's Super League match between the London Broncos and Hull FC played at London's Griffin Park. The video referee was Gerry Kershaw, "the best video referee in the game", according to his peers and a man who brings with him 25 years experience of on-pitch refereeing followed by 10 years making judgements off the field in his video corner.
I was invited to the match in order to answer the question: "Is the use of video referees and third umpires using computerised technology helping or hindering sport?" This is a thorny issue at the moment in the US where the QuesTec Umpire Information System - a computerised evaluation tool which monitors the accuracy of umpires' calls in 10 of 30 Major League Baseball ballparks - has been disparaged by players and umpires alike. In May 2003, the Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling was so incensed by a QuesTec decision that he destroyed a QuesTec machine at the Bank One Ballpark.
In the sport of cricket, the 'third umpire' has been utilised for some years now regarding decisions on run outs, catches and stumpings. It is now believed that the award winning Hawk Eye system, produced by Sunset and Vine, which uses missile-tracking technology, can take this to the next level by allowing the third umpire to make 'leg-before-wicket' decisions. The system was used for the first time in the Wimbledon Tennis Championships this year, thus allowing TV commentators and armchair viewers the chance to be umpires themselves. It may be only a matter of time before the umpires make use of this technology to allow them to reduce errors in the decision making process.
The technology utilised by Sky Sports and the RFL for off-field decisions relies on the video referee's own expertise and opinion based on broadcast footage. Gerry Kershaw (or one of the other five video referees employed by the RFL) sits in a corner of the Sky Sports outside broadcast truck and watches the drama unfold on his personal small screen. He is also surrounded by the other camera views that the production team are using to cover the match and produce the programming for Sky. He is wired up so that he can speak to the on-pitch referee (in this instance Steve Ganson) and the referee can speak to him. Or that is the theory.
In the Broncos versus Hull match, Ganson's microphone failed and he was unable to hear Kershaw for 20 minutes during the first half, although Kershaw could hear him. Ganson was stopped twice by Sky Sports technicians in order to try and fix the problem which held up the game for several minutes and did not please the crowd. Cries of "play without it" filled Griffin Park and any stoppage time in this instance ironically was due to the technological problems rather than injuries to players. However, according to Ganson, this has only happened to him two or three times in 10 years of the technology, so the experience during the Broncos match was not the norm.
Despite the hold-ups, generally the attitude of fans to the video referee at the Broncos game was bullish. "I think it is a good thing," said one fan, "it takes the pressure off the referee who is able to make decisions more quickly and doesn't ruin the game. In fact, we still get to shout at the referee's decisions as much as we used to. I can see other sports benefiting from video referees."
Kershaw agrees that the technology would definitely enhance other sports such as soccer, in which it could be used to assess penalty decisions and off-side calls. "FIFA is reluctant to change its laws," says Kershaw, "but why can't the Football Association [in the UK] trial it? It might take two minutes to make a call or it might take longer than two minutes but I think people will accept that if it means the right decisions can be made." Certainly many of us can cite examples in our favourite sports where the use of a video referee or off-field umpire would have altered the course of history. In my case, Premiership soccer side Aston Villa never would have been given a penalty against my Third Division (at that time) team Exeter City in a 1994 FA Cup match which subsequently put the team out of the competition (or at least deprived us of a lucrative replay at Villa Park!) And all soccer fans would certainly agree that the infamous 'Hand of God' incident whereby Argentina's Maradona hand-balled a Quarter Final goal that put England out of the 1986 Mexico FIFA World Cup was a case for a video referee if ever there was one.
But while this is a benefit, surely this can also be seen as a negative for sport? Surely the drama of a game or a match is in the sometimes spurious decisions that referees or umpires give in that split decision that they have to make a judgement? Don't fans love to hate referees? And don't they also secretly enjoy the injustices of 'wrong' decisions because for every one that goes against them, they will be smugly satisfied by the ones given in error against the opposing team? (Although I still maintain that the penalty given to Exeter City against Oxford United in December 2002 which subsequently gave them a surprise draw against a team much higher up the Third Division table was just and fair.)
Gerry Kershaw however disagrees that video and third referees and umpires are ruining sport. "In fact they have made it wonderful theatre," he says. "The spectators can get involved while they wait for decisions to come up on the big screen [within the stadium] and it frees the on-pitch referee to concentrate on other aspects of the game that he might otherwise not be able to follow fully."
During the Broncos match, on-pitch referee Steve Ganson asked Kershaw's opinion three times, although he will be most remembered for one moment in the dying seconds of the game where he was expected to come to Kershaw but controversially chose not to.
The first instance where Kershaw had to make a call was 10 minutes from the end of the first half. A Hull player was involved in a double movement while making a try so Kershaw ruled 'No Try', much to the delight of the home crowd at Griffin Park. In the second half of the game, Ganson was praised by the Sky Sports commentary team for stopping the match momentarily to ask Kershaw whether he agreed with him for giving a penalty to Hull. Kershaw did. "If you have the technology, then you may as well use it," said the Sky commentator. "That was excellent refereeing."
Later in the second half, Kershaw was again consulted on a try which was even difficult to judge when watching back the video footage. A Hull player went over the try line on his back and was obscured by several Broncos players at the moment his hands went over his head to attempt to ground the ball. Kershaw however remained calm and gave it as a try. There was no way Ganson nor any of the touch judges would have been able to call it themselves.
And so to the controversy. With minutes to go until the end of the match, the Broncos and Hull were 20 points apiece and both desperately looking for the one point from a drop kick which would have given them a victory. The Broncos players were the hungriest, still seeking an elusive home victory that season in front of a demanding crowd. In the dying 15 seconds of the game, Broncos player Dennis Moran made a break for what would have been a glorious try but seemed to be pulled back by several Hull players on more than one occasion. He was brought to the ground inches from the try line and everyone felt a penalty was sure to be given. "Go to the video referee," screamed the Sky Sports commentators. "Go the video referee," shouted Neville Smith, the vociferous Sky Sports producer and former Australian rugby referee. "Go to the video referee," screamed the delirious Broncos fans. Gerry Kershaw, as ever, remained calm and composed and awaited his fate.
But Ganson did not avail himself of Kershaw's services that final time, made a call himself that it wasn't a penalty, blew the whistle, and broke the hearts of 4,000 or so Broncos fans. So why did he not go to the video referee on what seemed to be an obvious decision to do so? "It was my call," he told me after the match, "and I am confident that it wasn't a penalty as the player never would have reached the line in time, so I didn't need to go to Gerry." And that's the nub of the matter. At the end of the day, the on-pitch referee still gets to call the shots and controls the destiny of the match and the video referee is merely a tool to utilise if he so wishes.
Which at least means that the fans (and TV commentators) still get to scream at the referee and question his decisions for hours, if not years, afterwards. Don't you just love sport? Rachael Church - Editor If you have any comments or feedback on this article or any of the features in Sport and Technology, we would like to hear from you. Please e-mail your comments to editor@sportandtechnology.com
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