A trailblazer for women referees

Morag Pirie

Morag Pirie holds a special place in the history of Scottish refereeing.  The first woman in Scotland to officiate at a semi-professional match and then at a major, national final, she was subsequently the first woman to be on the FIFA list. Morag began her journey to becoming a referee by playing football as a child….

“I played football in the garden in Aberdeen with my twin sister and also at primary school in the playground with the boys, but girls weren’t allowed to play in the school team. However, when we were in Primary 6 we were both allowed to play in a girls team at the annual Dyce Gala. 

“When I went to secondary school, there were no opportunities for girls to play football, but when I went to Aberdeen University I was delighted to discover they had a women’s team, which I promptly joined.  Around the same time, the SFA had just established a Women’s Development Officer for the north-east and as a sign of the increasing interest in women playing the game.  A year or so later, a new women’s team started up in the city after an advert in the P&J for players  – Aberdeen Accies, both myself, and my twin sister and also the development officer turned up and became players in this team .

“Whilst I was playing football, I also did some coaching courses, which I quite enjoyed.  Then, the person who is responsible for my refereeing career came on the scene, or rather up the path to our house.  It was the postie, who had seen an advert for the refereeing course in the local paper (the P&J).  He gave the paper to my mum and explained that he had seen me coaching at Bridge of Don and suggested, ‘perhaps Morag would like to do the refereeing course?’

“At much the same time, the Women’s Development Officer was looking for girls to help out by refereeing games, so I said I would and she gave me a whistle and away I went. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although in truth I didn’t actually know all the laws of the game. Then I thought that if I went and learned them, it would help me with my coaching.  I didn’t do anything about it until I was in third year at university, but then I had a bash and scraped through the refereeing exam.  My excuse was that I was studying hard for my university exams at the same time, but anyway, having passed I thought I’d give it a go and see if I liked it.

“The following summer, once I’d finished university, I started refereeing at Category 6, the level for those starting out.  I did Juvenile football and some girls’ league games - Under-13s, 14s and 15s - and then on Sundays I did Under-11s and 12s.  After a while, I was given some adult ladies’ football. It was all quite tiring, but I was young and very fit, plus I was enjoying it.

“In those first two years I did Juvenile games no-one came along to assess me.  In truth, I didn’t really know a lot about refereeing at that time and it looked as if my career was going to be just doing youngsters’ matches, but then I got a big break.  For many years, Aberdeen used to host an annual International Football Festival, which for  many years brought youngsters to the city from all over the world. I put my name forward for the Festival and was given some games as an Assistant Referee, running the line and, crucially, having other referees helping me, talking me through games and teaching me a lot more than I’d learned in the previous two years. To give you an idea of how little I knew, I hadn’t even heard of the diagonal system at that point, but the advice and encouragement I received really buoyed me up and I began to go to referee training and then my games started being assessed.   Sandy Roy, who ran the Aberdeen Association at that time, and Carol Baxter, who ran the Juvenile league, had a sort-of unwritten agreement with me that if I stuck in I’d get games with the oldest age group.  I did that for another year or so and was that I’d need to do adults to ‘toughen you up.’   Another key figure in the Association for me was Brian Christie.  He played a big part in my development. He’s a large guy with a big heart and a big personality who is not slow in coming forward. One of the first things he did was to get me into doing Sunday Welfare League games.  I’d never heard of the Welfare League before. Anyway, I soon discovered it is similar to amateurs, with the games played at Hazelhead Park where there are lots of football pitches.  I was told that the refs doing the other games would help if there were any problems, but my first game was a Cup tie which went to extra-time. The rest of them, the ones I was relying on to sort out any grief, all shoved off!  That certainly did toughen me up. 

“Looking back, I did a lot of matches. I didn’t realise just how many different levels and leagues there were in the area.  For example, when I was doing Juvenile games on Saturday, I was also running the line for midweek Highland League Under-19s.  That was voluntary; there was no pay, but the ref would get you chips on the way home.  I had six months of that, then progressed to Highland League Under-21s.  All this time as an Assistant helped me a lot.  As an Assistant you get the chance to watch the refs and see what they are doing well (and badly!).  

“In total, I did four years in Juvenile/Welfare football, then I was assessed and promoted to Category 4, which meant I started to referee Junior football (as opposed to being an Assistant). Today, there is a shortage of referees, but back then there were lots of us. Initially, I did First Division Junior games one week, which meant that I was on my own without any Assistants, and the next week I was an assistant in the Juniors.. Once I started to do Premier Division Juniors I had Assistants, but the experience of trying to manage games without a linesman or woman helped develop me and toughen me up even further.

“After two years doing the Juniors, I got an email telling me I was being promoted to Category 3 (Assistant Referee level).  This meant that not only did I referee Highland League games, but I also ran the line in Scottish Football League Divisions 1, 2 and 3. What happened was that I did Highland League matches most Saturdays but then once a month you’d get to run the line in an SFL match.

“On 2^nd August 2003 I became the first woman to referee a Highland League game.  It was between Huntly and Wick and a few weeks after that, on 16^th Aug 2003, I did my first SFL match, running the line for Peterhead vs Gretna with John Underhill as the referee and Jim Lyons as the other Assistant.

Being the first woman to officiate at this level did, as Morag recalls, lead to some excitement in the media…

“Doing those games, at Huntly and Peterhead, introduced me to something that I had to get used to over the next few weeks, months and indeed years, namely a huge degree of media interest in a woman officiating in what had traditionally been regarded as a male domain.  I had TV, the press and radio all following me during the matches and although they were mostly positive and reasonable, some were less so.  The Sun, in particular, published photos that left a lot to be desired and a few journalists were inclined to twist quotes.  Fortunately, I didn’t have a lot of bad games, so there wasn’t much controversy, apart from the Peter Hetherston incident (described in Part ? below or above).

“The local Referees’ Association were supportive in that they gave me some advice, mainly to be sensible and keep it positive, but also a reminder not to talk about incidents during a match.  That apart, when I got promoted to handle bigger games, I was basically given carte blanche to talk to anyone, but the phone would go all the time, or they would call my work, and it actually got to be a bit of a nuisance, with calls all the time from journalists and photographers. Having to deal with that by yourself was sometimes very hard. 

“I wasn’t really conscious of being a trail-blazer, certainly not in the early stages of my refereeing career.  One thing did happen regularly though when I was doing Juvenile matches.  You used to get a courtesy call before the game, to make sure you knew where the pitch was, the,team colours etc and because I was listed as ‘M. Pirie’ the secretaries of the clubs would call the house and ask for Mr Pirie.  My mum invariably answered the phone and would say, ‘oh, that will be my daughter you’re looking for…’ followed by a short silence until they realised she was being serious. Then, when I turned up at games, I was aware that there were some perplexed glances and, ‘oh it’s a woman here.’

For some men, perhaps especially the older generation, there is a tendency not to swear if women are present, but in today’s society there are generally no such qualms and Morag quickly got used to the language used by the players…

“Three years into my refereeing career, I was in Blackpool for a youth tournament.  There were teams from Ireland and they swore more than anyone I’d ever heard.  Every second word seemed to be a swear word, but being Irish they said, ‘feck’ instead of our Anglo-Saxon version.  Eventually, I had had enough and told one of the lads, ‘you need to stop swearing or I’ll send you off.’  He didn’t seem to get this, but one of his team-mates came to his rescue, telling him, ‘you’ll need to stop fecking swearing or she’ll fecking well send you off.’” 

As her career progressed, did Morag notice a marked improvement in the quality of the football she was refereeing…?

“You really do notice the difference as you move up in the game.  At Juvenile male games, there are a lot of adolescent teenagers bursting with testosterone, but the speed and quality is obviously limited. Generally, the testosterone goes down as the quality of the football goes up. I remember Gary Chene, from the Aberdeen Referees’ Association telling me that I’d notice a big change when I started doing Junior football.  He wasn’t wrong.  I contacted him after my first Junior match and said, ‘Wow! How fast was that?’  Then, when I began to do Highland League games, I noticed a step change again. It’s faster, sharper, fitter and, you might find it hard to believe, more polite.  You get far less crappy abuse the higher you go as a referee – and the football is better.”

Sometimes, though, the players don’t really understand the rules…

“I remember a game in Huntly where they had a tactic they adopted from goal-kicks. They would position a forward at the edge of the opposition box and hope that the ball would come through to him. It worked and they scored, after which the opposition went nuts.  I had to explain patiently that you can’t be offside from a goal-kick…”

It was clear that Morag had the ability and temperament to advance further in the game.  In 2005, she became the first Scottish woman on the FIFA Assistant Referees’ list, however, there was a problem…

“There were no other women from Scotland – no refs or other Assistants to go with – so I got no games!  While I was obviously delighted to be on the FIFA list, it obviously hadn’t been very well thought out.  However, in July 2005, I was an Assistant in the men’s Champions League game in Cyprus, between Famagusta and Dinamo Minsk. It was 40C and I just about died in the heat. However, it was the biggest game I’d done to that date and it was a memorable occasion; the crowd and the atmosphere were amazing and I remember there were lots of toilet rolls thrown on the pitch for some reason.

“Subsequently, I did a few men’s European and international games – in the Champions League, the UEFA men’s Under-19 championships in Spain, where I got some great marks from the assessor, then my first ever women’s match at the Women’s Under-19 championships Switzerland, where I ran the line in the final. Then I had a few chats with Hugh Dallas and we decided that I’d stop doing matches as an Assistant and I took a year out from international football.  In 2009, I was nominated as a FIFA referee and then did a lot of international games.  It also helped the other girls coming through the system: it meant that they had a female referee to work with and Lorraine Clark became my Assistant and in time she too became a FIFA ref and paved the way for other girls to rise up the ranks.  Since then, Kylie McMullen replaces Lorraine as my main assistant, and a few years later, Kylie’s now the only female FIFA Assistant Referee in the Scottish Premier League.   I’ve been to so many countries around Europe and even to China for the Youth Olympics.  The only thing I didn’t get was an appointment at the ‘proper’ World Cup finals, which I was gutted at, I did several qualifying matches and FIFA courses and other tournaments including the Women’s Under-19 World Cup in Azerbaijan and  where I did the semi-final and was the fourth official for the third-fourth place play-off. I’ve had many Womens Champions League matches ,including a quarter Final with 10,000 spectators.  Also, I have seen countries and cultures that I could never have imagined I’d see, some of which was a real eye-opener.  You see people whose main means of getting around is a horse and cart and then somewhere else you see goats living under people’s houses. It’s humbling and certainly puts materialism into perspective, making you realise that you actually don’t need the latest mobile phone and every modern gadget.”

Without the postman suggesting to Morag’s mum that her daughter that she might like to become a referee, none of this might have happened.  Morag’s parents have encouraged her at every step of the way…

“My parents are proud of what I’ve achieved, but they don’t say a lot about it.  My mum will tell people, ‘my daughter is a referee,’ and my dad, although he is a man of few words, would come to every game I did in the Highland League and the SFL.  He’s a Dons fan and I think he got frustrated with them and he quite liked watching a different variety of game where he said the players were more committed. When he came to games, he always made sure he stood away from the other fans. If my games are on the TV, the family watch the start of the match to see me then when whistle goes they change the channel because they don’t like to hear the fans shouting at me.  Mum has come to watch a game but she only went to watch the first half because there was Chris Harvey and a TV camera there filming for “the people show”. She brought our dog with her and they stood in the far corner, which turned out was where the camera moved to, and mid-way into the first half I noticed they were interviewing my mum - and the dog. It’s hard to referee when you’re laughing…”

This is from a chapter in our Operations Director's book on Scottish referees and the impact of Scotland on the laws of the game, available from Amazon at this link.