The Referee
by Bernard McGrath, Inspection Validation Centre

He cut a lonely figure up in the box. You could almost feel sorry for him. His isolation was accentuated by the announcer, who stood at his side, busying himself with the public address system. The box, illuminated within, glowed bright in the evening gloom. He couldn’t hide. Luckily, his loneliness was guaranteed by the stewards who stood around the box to ward off any irate fans who took it upon themselves to even out the injustice of his decisions.

Before I disclose the details of this particular referee's misdemeanours, it is worth reminding ourselves how referees are viewed in general. In our national sport, where players and administrators go out of their way to make the job of refereeing as difficult as possible, commentators use all available modern technology to analyse and criticise the referees’ decisions. Limited technology is used to help the referee. But even in the oval ball codes where technology is used in ensuring that the correct decision is arrived at and the players have to show the necessary respect, the tendency is to immediately assume that the referee is guilty until the player is proved not innocent.

In a recent game in the more exciting of the two codes, the referee called for the assistance of the video ref. He told him exactly what to check for and the try was subsequently awarded. Looking at the replays, the commentating team suggested that the referee should have checked the grounding as well, because it looked as if the player had not put the ball down behind the try line. On about the fifth replay, looking from a new camera angle which was similar to the referee’s view, it could clearly be seen that the ball had touched the turf. Grudgingly, the team acknowledged the skill of the referee and quickly moved on to change the subject.

A different game, a different code and a different continent: the same disparagement of the referee. Following the whistle for yet another penalty, the whining commentators used the reason why this game has lost some of its attraction to blame the referee – "the rules are so complicated that the referee can always find some reason to pull up the players". Luckily, the commentators did not control the pictures and in the replay it was clear that the player who tried to pick the ball up was in an offside position. Good referee, stupid (or cheating) player and useless commentators! But let us not dwell on that because we pay the player and the commentator a lot more than the mere referee.

I suspect that you can all see the parallels between the attitudes towards referees described above and those sometimes shown to an NDT operator, but there is another lesson that we need to hold onto, which was highlighted by the referee whose story opened this article. He was the referee at the British Speedway Grand Prix. He made a number of fundamental errors, which were highlighted by the commentators, riders and team managers after they had seen the television replays. The key issue in this case was that the referee had access to the same pictures and still he made the errors.

Despite implementing technology in the various sports, and despite so much depending on the outcome, we still insist on placing the full responsibility on a single person. Of course assistant referees (linesmen) can have an input but even when there is a video referee, it is either the referee or the video referee who has to make the decision on their own. They do not do it together.
And this can be the case in NDT. The qualified operator is the person who, single-handed, carries the decisions. But it doesn't have to be the case. The operator should always have recourse to a second opinion from a Level 3 or a colleague. Two months ago, the What the Hec! article referred to a paper on knowledge management in NDT. This paper proposed that the NDT operator could access assistance through a knowledge-based system, an online communication facility or through a web portal to a mobile phone.

So, just like the referees, the technology is ready and waiting to facilitate access to assistance but, as is the case with referees, the administrators need to update the processes and protocols so as not to impair the implementation.

Please note that the views expressed in this column are the author's own personal ramblings for the purpose of encouraging discussion within the NDT Newspaper. They do not represent the views of the IVC, Serco Assurance or the HSE who funded the PANI projects.

Letters can be mailed to The Editor, NDT News, 1 Spencer Parade, Northampton NN1 5AA. Fax: 01604 231489; E-mail: ndtnews@bindt.org or e-mail Bernard McGrath direct at Bernard.McGrath@sercoassurance.com