SNRR Life Members
Inaugural Life Member of SNRR
Peter Taylor
Peter Taylor (also known as “Sticks” amongst many people in the Manly rugby community) has been refereeing kids rugby on the northern beaches since the 1960s. More than 50 years. Yes, really – more than 50 years !
There is video evidence of Peter running touch in the 1971 Grand Final of the U10s. He started refereeing before that but record keeping is not a strong suit within the Manly rugby community. It seems that we mostly like telling tall stories whilst drinking beer and laughing with our mates. So, the exact date of when Peter started out refereeing is still a bit cloudy. Peter was thereabouts 20 years old when he started his refereeing career. He is now 75 years old and living in an aged care residence in Normanhurst. His last season refereeing was in 2019. That means he was 72 years old when he finally stopped refereeing.
Peter was a Fairlight local for a very long time until ill health saw him having to move into the aged care residence in Normanhurst. He was often seen strolling up to the Fairlight shops on Sydney Rd so that he could drop in to the Fairlight cake shop and grab a pie for lunch and maybe even “a little something” to enjoy after lunch with a cup of tea.
When Peter first started refereeing kids rugby the appointment to matches and training of rugby referees was delivered by Manly Rugby Referees Association. In 2004 Manly RRA merged into Metropolitan North Zone Rugby Referees Association along with the Warringah and Gordon RRAs. That merged entity is now known as Sydney North Rugby Referees, Inc (“SNRR”).
SNRR has just announced that Peter Taylor’s massive contribution to rugby on Sydney’s northern beaches has been formally acknowledged by SNRR conferring Life Member status on Peter earlier this week. SNRR President, Chris Hedge, was smiling broadly when he said “That makes Peter the very first Life Member of SNRR and I can’t think of a better person who embodies the spirit of contributing to rugby and contributing to their community.”
Manly Junior Rugby Union (“MJRU”) conferred Life Member status on Peter a number of years ago. One of the most memorable anecdotes shared about Peter at the time is that he did not drive a car, so he would make his way to the venue of whatever matches he was refereeing either on foot or by public transport. Now that really is commitment.
Peter has always been of very slight stature (hence, his nick name of “Sticks”) and he is also very softly spoken. Until his retirement from refereeing, he was immediately recognizable by so many people in the rugby family on the northern beaches. He is also a person for whom so many of those people “have a soft spot”. Peter’s gentle nature and softly spoken manner meant that he was widely recognized as the perfect referee to handle those matches that involved our very youngest players – those between 8 yo and 11 yo.
Congratulations Peter and enjoy your retirement.
Dennis Fardy
Dennis was born in 1945. He was introduced to and fell in love with rugby at Bathurst Teachers College in the early Sixties as a teenager. He played the game in the Army as a “nasho” (i.e. when doing his compulsory national military service), at University of New England and with the St George and Randwick clubs in what we now know as the Shute Shield. Dennis finished his playing career at the Newport Rugby Club in 1983 at the still tender age of 38!
He has been a long serving and passionate member of the Newport rugby club community ever since – a period of well over 40 years!
After 40 years of living at Newport, Dennis now lives just down the road at Warriewood – which is happily still on the northern beaches.
Dennis first started refereeing for the Warringah Referees Association (RA) in 1982. After just one year he went back to playing for the Newport Club in 1983 and then reconsidered his career as a rugby referee and joined Sydney RA in 1984. He spent a number of years with Sydney RA and later the NSWRRA. Sometime in the 1990s he rejoined the Warringah RA and then became one of the founding members of Metropolitan North Zone RA in 2004 when that RA was first formed.
After a name change a few years back, MNZRA became known as Sydney North Rugby Referees (“SNRR”) and Dennis is still an active member of SNRR to this day. In 2022 he refereed 18 matches for us and has now been refereeing for some 40 years in total.
Congratulations Dennis on becoming a Life Member of SNRR.
Terry Wooldridge
Terry’s contribution to rugby has mainly been in his capacity as a Coach. Terry’s first coaching assignment was coaching one of his sons’ U6 soccer team (which he admits he knew very little about). This first step was followed by a long career coaching rugby and later on rugby referees.
Terry has lived at Mona Vale since 1970 and it is no surprise that much of his rugby coaching contributions have taken place on the Northern Beaches. He has coached club players for various Newport teams and schoolboy players for St Augustine’s College. Terry also coached every age of Warringah Juniors’ representative teams from U10 to U17 – and he has had some reasonable success with that too!
In 1997 Terry retired from rugby coaching and started refereeing. Initially, he was doing that as a member of the Warringah Rugby Referees Association (WRRA) which he continued until 2003. He then took up refereeing Subbies rugby with NSWRRA from 2004 to 2006.
In 2007 Terry joined the Metropolitan North Zone RRA which had formed just a few years earlier in 2004. Terry was refereeing as well as coaching other referees. In 2008 he was appointed Head of Referee Coaching (HORC) for MNZRA (later renamed SNRRA) which was a role he held for years 8 years until 2015. During this time, he developed a large group of fellow coaches ensuring that all SN referees were coached regularly.
During his time as HORC Terry helped develop the Referee Grading Tier structure. He was also actively involved in all of the SSS Group Development Squads from 2011 to 2021. The SSS initiative involved young referees in their final years of secondary schooling being given enhanced coaching and refereeing development opportunities. Over that period SNRR had 63 participants in the SSS program and many of those referees went on to higher refereeing honors with NSWRRA and the ARU.
So far in Terry’s long rugby refereeing career he has refereed approximately 300 games and coached some 200 referees. He is still an active Referee Coach with SNRRA and is held in the highest esteem by the referee fraternity and the wider rugby community.
Congratulations Terry on becoming a Life Member of SNRR
Ian eastman
(More to come including photo)
Colin Mackenzie
(More to come including photo)
