Big game referee was colourful local identity

The Wanganui man who officiated the city's biggest game of association football of the time was the right man for the job as he was a bit of a local identity.

Last Saturday the Wanganui Chronicle covered some background on the North Island vs South Island match played in front of 3000 spectators at Cooks Gardens on September 17, 1921.

Former Wanganui Football Association president Clayton Bunker found the official team photos framed together in a Palmerston North shop in 1989.

In both pictures is referee William Grey Herd, who had to come off during the match with a leg injury, something his grandson Terry Coxon can remember his mother and aunts talking about.

"I remember hearing stories about how he got injured," said Coxon, now living back in Wanganui in retirement.

"I think he pulled a hamstring. It was later in the match."

A Scotsman who emigrated to Wanganui from Glasgow, Herd clocked up 25 years' experience as a soccer referee in New Zealand, which included stints as vice-president and then president of the New Zealand Referees Association.

Coxon could recall pictures of his grandfather in the officials' uniform of the day complete with light pants and straps.

After first heading to Wellington for nine months in 1902, Herd moved to Wanganui with his wife, raising three daughters and two sons.

Several of the grandchildren are still living here.

"He was a quiet fella. He was married to a wild Irish woman and he was Scottish," said Coxon.

"They were an unusual pair, they met on the boat coming out here."

Herd set up a successful supply business for paints, wallpapers and other house items, which was eventually bought out by R & E Tingeys for whom he became a manager.

He was a keen road and track cyclist, having been club captain of the Motherwell Cycling Club in Glasgow.

Herd also became vice president of the Wanganui Highland Pipe Band and was an event organiser for the Caledonian Society.

But it was in bowls where he is most remembered in Wanganui.

As a founding member of the Rapanui Club in Kai Iwi, Herd won the Wanganui Champion of Champions singles title from 1923-25.

He would join the St John's club and win that title again in 1928.

"I don't think he was ever home Caledonian, concerts, soccer, bowls, pipebands," laughed Coxon.

His grandfather passed away suddenly on April 24, 1947.