Referees can get a lot of stick at times but on the way to the game today we stopped at ferrybridge services, and there were a few warrington coaches parked up. When we returned to the car we saw phil bentham (video ref for todays game), getting into his car, and we ended up following him out of the services onto the motorway. As we got to the motorway bentham was behind a Warry coach, all the lads on the back seats were giving him abuse when they realised who it was, and i saw him clearly wave for a few seconds before overtaking

Then we overtook the coach, also after taking/giving some friendly banter

and then as we pulled up level with bentham i (in the passenger seat) put a 10 pound note up against the window and pointed at my shirt as if to offer a bribe, he saw me and laughed... then a few minutes later bentham pulled level with our car, looked at us and waved a big wad of notes at us

This is before he sped off into the distance in a rather nice BMW

more of a be there moment i admit, but it seemed funny at the time, shows they can have a laugh and share a bit of banter

Personaly I think you have to have a sense of humour to be a ref, for all the abuse they get.
love `em or hate `em,we can`t do without them.

One Wembley weekend many moons ago we had a 1st grade ref in the same hotel (cannot remember his name, but he was from Bramley). He was telling us all sorts of stories about his time as a ref. We asked him who was the worst player to referee and he said it was Andy Gregory, in one game he had given a try and Greg's ran over to him and said 'sir, that was never a try' to which he replied 'look in the papers tomorrow Andy, I'll think you'll find it was'

Would you have run thaler off the road though lmao

If it was Thaler i think id have joined the Wire lads and given him a load of s**t