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Grunt
8th June 2006, 11:05 AM
One of SOO's Icons gets the full time call.

BARRY Gomersall, the controversial rugby league referee whom fans knew as The Grasshopper, has been diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer.

"When you're told its terminal and there's nothing they can do for you, you've got to take a step back and re-assess and take a good look at life," Gomersall, 60, said tonight on the Nine Network.

"Look's like you've got yourself another challenge Grasshopper."

The colourful north Queenslander, as much a part of State of Origin as Arthur Beetson and Wally Lewis, has been given only months to live.

"Without blokes like him, you just wouldn't have the legend of State of Origin football quite as strong as it is today," Lewis said.

Famous for "refereeing the football and not the fights", Gomersall was always amused by claims that he favoured Queensland, which won seven of the nine Origins he controlled.

As a referee, he was never afraid to face his critics and he enjoyed the Origin theatre as much as anyone.

He was plucked out of North Queensland, where he refereed several rough-and-tumble Foley Shield finals, by the late Senator Ron McAuliffe.

He made his debut with the whistle in the first Origin game of the 1982 series at Lang Park, which Queensland won 11-7.


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He became such a public figure that he was confronted by an outraged fan, not much bigger than himself, who gave him a gobful after one game in Sydney that Queensland won in dramatic circumstances.
He brushed off the verbal abuse and later had a good laugh when told his verbal assailant was none other than world boxing champion Jeff Fenech.

Gomersall, a stick-like man with a prominent moustache and a grasshopper-like gait over the ground, copped heaps from Blues fans - and loved it.

He used to say: "It's mind over matter, I don't mind, and they don't matter."

Gomersall had a free-flowing style that provided great spectacle, and he dislikes the invasion of technology - which he believes has made referees afraid to make tough calls.

"Even from a refereeing point of view, there's not a better place to be than out in the middle of a State of Origin," he said.

3oneday
8th June 2006, 11:07 AM
Yep, QLD have never performed the same since he retired ;)

:lol:

Grunt
8th June 2006, 11:12 AM
I met him a few years ago at a golf day, boy he is smaller for real than the TV depicts. He must have known the respect the players had for him, remember the times he just walked into the middle of brawls to break them up. I don't think a punch ever hit him and sometimes he was real close.

dc68
8th June 2006, 11:22 AM
I say let him ref at Lang Park one last time,you know just for old times sake.:smt002 :smt064

Grunt
8th June 2006, 11:24 AM
I say let him ref at Lang Park one last time,you know just for old times sake.:smt002 :smt064

LOL

I don't think even the grasshopper can save you guys.

Jarro
8th June 2006, 12:03 PM
tragic news ... the guy is a legend up here.

Fishman Dan
8th June 2006, 05:39 PM
And reviled down here. But terrible news to get i suppose.

He'd do better than a few of the refs going around now.