It is sad to report the death of Uriah Rennie the first Black referee in the Premier League.
In Football’s Black Pioneers we wrote about the first Black player at each of the Football League clubs, we mentioned the first Black manager (Tony Collins at Rochdale) and we recorded the trials, tribulations and triumphs of them all. They were true pioneers.
We made no mention of Black referees.
Born in Jamaica in 1959, Uriah Rennie moved to Sheffield as a child. He took up refereeing in local football in 1979. He rose to the top and was on the FIFA list from 2000-2004. As a referee he would have faced the same issues as the pioneering players and no doubt the popular chant ‘who’s the bastard in the black’ would have taken on a whole new meaning when he was the referee.
He was every bit a pioneer too and deserves to be remembered as such.
As I wrote this I thought ‘there should be a book’ and, of course, there is:
