Dessie Loughery. Revered Irish League player. Respected Irish League referee. Renowned Irish League photographer. This fella knows Irish League football inside out.
iven the Limavady man’s credentials and experience, he’s in a prime position to talk about the topic hotter than the sun in the game here right now. You guessed it... refereeing.
Since Northern Ireland Football League (NIFL) Chief Executive Gerard Lawlor, on the back of numerous debateable refereeing decisions, gave an interview to the Belfast Telegraph earlier this month admitting that the standard of officiating was a threat to the progress of the Irish League, debate over his comments has raged.
Loughery is well known for his brilliance as a Ballymena United player from 1988 for 11 years prior to a short stint at Coleraine. He retired at 32, started refereeing every week at 35 and was an Irish Premiership official by the age of 40.
Forever a straight talker, Loughery has a fascinating take on the refereeing discussion and suggests that the football authorities should be investing in the whistlers and looking at making them full-time, a path which some clubs in Northern Ireland have already decided to take.
“Well, first of all I don’t think referees are that bad here that they will hold the game back,” says Loughery.
“We have some good referees but yes, some need a bit of guidance in my view. By the way no referee goes out to have a bad game. They go out to do their best.
“The big difference today from when I refereed is that every game is on TV or streamed and the scrutiny is intense and social media is mental. There is no hiding place.
“Take the Crusaders v Glentoran game earlier this month for example. The young referee Jamie Robinson looks the part, has a body to die for and is as fit as a fiddle and I’m not having a go at him and think he can become a very good referee but he made a couple of telling mistakes. We’ve all made mistakes but years ago they weren’t noticed. With TV coverage that has changed.
“Supporters are always going to have a go but managers need to take a step back from criticising referees all the time. They are very quick to tell the media what the referee got wrong but what if a referee was interviewed after a match and said that a manager made three terrible substitutions that cost his team the game and got things wrong tactically. How would managers feel if that constantly happened?
“They make mistakes but aren’t so quick to admit their own errors that have an impact on the game. I feel sorry for referees with what goes on now.
“To me everyone should be looking to help and improve referees. The authorities are pumping money into lots of different areas of football but why don’t the IFA invest more in refereeing to take it to a really high standard?
“If you want to improve the standards what you do is take a pool of referees and assistants and put money into that process and turn them into semi-professional referees or professional referees. That would then be attractive for young referees thinking about a career in the game.
“Get referees to take charge of matches on a Tuesday and at the weekend and have get togethers each week for fitness and meetings to discuss their performances and show video clips so they can learn from each other’s experiences and pay them for their time.
“People might think I’m crazy saying that but there are full-time teams, managers and players in the Irish League, so why not full-time referees?”
Reflecting on his own time as a whistler, Loughery says he felt he had respect though adds just because you have been a player it doesn’t make you a ‘good referee’.
“It has to be in you. I actually thought refereeing was easier than being a player,” says the 54-year-old, who works for Pacemaker Press.
“I also refereed gaelic and a county Derry final between Kilrea and Ballinderry within a year and a half of starting. I loved doing two different codes.
“In soccer it took me four years to go from being a junior referee to a senior referee. Players and managers knew me from my playing days and I felt I had their respect.
“Today I find things a little different. When I was a referee and you used to check boots in the dressing room I would go in and have a bit of banter and slagging with the players and there was a camaraderie.
“I spoke to them on the pitch as well just like the referees in my playing days would do with me.”
With affection Loughery rhymes off names like Davy Magill, Frankie Hiles, Leslie Irvine, Alan Snoddy, Frank McDonald and John Ferry from his days as a player, adding with a smile ‘John Ferry never gave me anything!”.
“I would say 90% of the referees walk out on to the pitch and barely speak to anybody and it becomes a them and us but then you don’t know if that’s a directive sent down from on high. They may be told not to talk to players,” says Loughery, who quit officiating in 2014 for family reasons.
Working as a photographer at Tuesday’s 2-2 draw between Cliftonville and Linfield at Solitude, he states: “I thought the referee Tony Clarke had a good game. Linfield fans might say he was diabolical because there was a bit of time wasting and when Jamie McDonagh scored his second goal for Cliftonville he jumped into the crowd and could have been given a second booking and sent off but the referee used a bit of common sense there.
“I went through a same experience once when a boy scored a goal in the 93rd minute to win the match and he jumped up on to the fence and celebrated like a madman. The assessor after the game told me he had to mark me down because I should have sent the scorer off for climbing the perimeter fence. My words to him were ‘did you ever score a goal in the 93rd minute?’ For me the spirit of the law was keeping the yellow card in my pocket.”
Loughery’s spirit as a player was something else. ‘Chicken’, as he was known, scored over 100 goals for Ballymena and loved to entertain. Fearless, the 5 ft 7 winger relished battling with defenders so hard they were made of concrete not skin and bone.
Married to Annemarie with children Dessie Jr, Sarah-Marie, Emma and Shauna and six grandchildren to cherish, the long time groundsman for the Education Board says Irish League football has been his life.
“I’m a Ballymena man through and through. Ballymena United were the best club in the planet to me. I know I went to Coleraine in the last two years of my career but I think that’s because I was homesick and it was handy to my house,” comments Loughery, one of the game’s biggest characters.
“No one could ever say I didn’t try and if the players in my time had the pitches these boys are playing on now it would have been happy days. People might disagree but I don’t think the standards today are any better, I just think they are fitter. If I’d been asked to do the Linfield warm-up at Clftonville I’d have gone back into the dressing room and put my feet up!
“I used to dander about with my socks round my ankles and keep the ball up for 10 minutes, take a couple of shots and go back in before a match. Team-mates would say ‘is that you?’ and I would reply ‘there’s no point being Maradona in training, I’ll wait to the game starts!”
“These days I get treated unbelievably well anywhere I go in the Irish League. People remember me as a player and as a referee. I’m always grateful for that.”
