Last Tuesday night Sunny Singh Gill was centre stage at the Stadium of Light, refereeing Sunderland v Leicester in front of a crowd of more than 40,000. Deep in stoppage time, the home side, trailing 1-0 to the Championship leaders, appealed for a penalty and one of England’s loudest, most passionate, audiences turned up the volume to earsplitting levels.
Sunderland’s home can be an intimidating place in such moments but, almost certainly correctly, Singh Gill remained adamant Daniel Ballard had tumbled in the box a little too easily and Leicester held on to secure a win that could prove pivotal in the race for automatic promotion.
It also served as a dress rehearsal for the biggest moment of the 39-year-old’s officiating career. on Saturday, Singh Gill will become the first British South Asian to referee a Premier League fixture when he takes charge of Crystal Palace v Luton.
With the outcome at Selhurst Park exerting a significant bearing on the struggle to avoid relegation, the part-time prison officer can expect his decision making to be analysed in scientific detail. Robert Was ranks among those confident he will emerge with flying colours.
Was, as president of the Middlesex referees’ association, has known Singh Gill, his brother Bhupinder and their father, Jarnail, for decades.
A year ago Bhupinder, a PE teacher, became the first British South Asian to serve as an assistant referee at an English top-flight game and, back in 2004, Jarnail began refereeing Football League matches. Twenty years on the UK has a Hindu prime minister of Indian heritage but Jarnail Singh Gill, a Sikh-Punjabi, remains the only leading English referee to have officiated wearing a turban.
These days Jarnail combines refereeing grassroots games with serving as a community support officer for the Metropolitan police in Hounslow and remains on a mission to diversify England’s refereeing pool. He was duly delighted to accept Was’s recent invitation to join his two sons in giving an extremely well received talk to the Middlesex referees’ association in Uxbridge.
“There were maybe 90 people present and those three had the presence, the personality, to hold the room,” said Was. “If you’re going to referee multimillion-pound Premier League footballers you need that.
“Sunny’s a chip off the old block: he’s like his dad, very laid back and worldly wise. If the boys were upset about something when they were growing up Jarnail had the experience to know when to be old style and say: ‘So what, just get on with it.’ That’s helped Sunny and Bhupinder cope with criticism. They can hold their own.
“They’re excellent, engaging, communicators and they talked to us about their personal journeys but also had lots of very interesting things to say about fitness, diet, alcohol intake and body language. Refereeing at the highest level takes an awful lot of self-discipline, hard work – and talent.”
As two of the 22 match officials of black, Asian or mixed heritage working in the professional men’s and women’s games – there are 11 in each sphere – Sunny and Bhupinder take their responsibility as role models seriously.
“You want the younger generation to look at you and think: ‘I can also do it,’” said Sunny in an interview with the Premier League website. “If parents are looking at us thinking: ‘Wow, we have Asian kids in the Premier League officiating games, my son can give that a go, my daughter can give that a go.’”
Sunny says he has never experienced racism on the pitch but accepts he is in a “spotlight”, telling the EFL website he felt he has “no margin for error” in matches. “I didn’t look like the others and that’s the challenge, because if you make a mistake, you’re remembered,” he said. “But if you want to be successful you need to be resilient.”
Fortunately, Was confirms that Sunny is very capable of “giving as good as he gets” and has developed a tough enough skin to fulfil what Sunny terms “my dream of being the first South Asian referee”. As Sunny puts it: “I want to be a role model and I have to lead by example.”
Jarnail’s example inspired Sunny, who, after impressing for youth football teams at west London’s Indian Gymkhana sporting club had trials with QPR, to abandon ambitions to play professionally.
As a schoolboy his friends were unfailingly impressed when they spotted Jarnail – who arrived in the West Midlands at the age of three after his parents emigrated from India – on Match of the Day, serving as fourth official at Premier League games.
Although as a small boy Sunny “so wanted” to be a star striker in the Ian Wright mould, a teenage trip to Molineux to watch his father take charge of Wolves v Burnley in front of 35,000 people prompted a road to Damascus moment. “I thought: ‘Yeah, I want to be a referee,’” he said.
At 17 he took charge of his first Sunday League game but reverted to playing for the next five years until a chat with his father persuaded him to relocate his whistle and continue the family tradition of challenging lazy, stereotypical assumptions.
“As a turbaned referee there were comments like: ‘What’s he doing at football, he should be at cricket or hockey,’” Jarnail has said. “There were remarks about my colour and race but, at the end of the day, it’s all about the decisions you make; about whether you’ve done justice to the role.
“I’m so happy my sons are doing themselves and the community proud; I hope they will encourage more South Asians to take up refereeing.”
