A rugby referee who was sworn at and had his shorts pulled down by a spectator at a club rugby match in 2011 wants a nationwide campaign to try change attitudes towards sports officials.
Ben Brooks was the stand-in linesman at a Bay of Plenty match when spectator Matua Parkinson - who was watching his club side Rangataua lose to fierce rivals Te Puke - took issue with the 19-year-old's officiating.
The former New Zealand Sevens captain swore at Brooks before pulling his shorts down.
"It was very, very out of the blue," Brooks said. "The game was heated and I must have made a mistake. When you're a passionate supporter, you see a mistake and you want to take action."
Parkinson had his case heard by a rugby judicial board. He apologised to Brooks and was banned from rugby until the end of 2012.
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Brooks told the Herald today he had no hard feelings toward Parkinson but was sickened to hear of two instances of alleged assault against referees just last Saturday.
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In Middlemarch, near Dunedin, a player allegedly punched a referee after being handed a red card near the end of a senior-grade final match on Saturday. A 27-year-old man has been charged with common assault over the incident.
This morning the Herald reported a second assault on a referee on the same day - this time at an under-12s rugby match at Auckland's Pulman Park. A spectator allegedly punched the teenage referee to the ground before attempting to pick him up by the throat after the match - apparently because of his decision to send a player off the field.
The Pulman Park incident is set to go to a judicial hearing and is also being investigated by police, who said no charges had been laid yet.
Brooks said he loved refereeing but feared younger people would be put off if they kept hearing about refs being hit or abused.
"These things have just kept going on and on and on. Especially at junior games, we try make it a safe environment for everybdy but that doesn't stop it happening."
Rugby clubs and wider associations had been pushing the message about respecting referees but it didn't filter out to the wider public, he said.
"We can't stop a random person turning up to enjoy the game, but if that person decides the ref is not reffing a good game, they can abuse or attack them and it's almost impossible to stop that person," he said.
"It's everyone's problem - whether the ref's association, the union, the supporters or the players," he said. "There'll always be people out to take matters into their own hands but as a country we need to take the first step."
