Deafness has failed to keep John Mansell from a successful career as a rugby league referee.
A new arrival in Wellington this season from Hawke’s Bay, Mansell is a deaf mute. He was left with the disability after German measles, aged three.
The outstanding feature of his refereeing is the lucidity of his signals.
Communicating with sign language, he says he is confident refereeing at all levels.
“I know the rule book inside out. If you know the rules and the signals well, there’s no reason why a referee has to talk.”
Backchat often happens at some stage in most competitive team sports, which apparently isn’t a problem either because he can lip read competently. Sometimes he will just ignore it even though he has an idea what is being said.
Mansell chose rugby as his main sport after watching a Sydney match on television as an 11-year-old some 32 years ago.
He made his debut as a half-back shortly after and describes himself as “very quick”. However, his playing career ended 13 years ago when he suffered an eye injury and was advised by his doctor to stop playing.
So he swapped his playing jersey for a white one, a whistle, and a rulebook.
He found it difficult initially, but soon got used to refereeing in Auckland, which is recognised as the league stronghold in New Zealand.
Now the only problem he finds is that it can be difficult when he gives one particular team a choice of options. Usually, players are very helpful, but he has been involved in a couple of distasteful incidents, one where a coach and some supporters abused him over a decision.
Mansell finally called the match off. To his credit, he was later commended by the referee’s association for standing by his decision, which had been endorsed by the respective league body.
He has no plans to retire, saying he wants to referee “forever”. His ambition is to referee a test match. To date, he has been the linesman for a round of the 1990 Lion Red series and the game between Great Britain and the President’s XIII last year.
Two years ago, Mansell was invited to referee a game between two deaf teams in Sydney. He did it and enjoyed the two-week holiday that both teams paid for. In Wellington this year, he has already had an approach to do a local game between two deaf sides.
He has two sons from a former marriage, one of whom was born deaf. He also has a twin brother who was born deaf.
When he’s not controlling league matches, he plays basketball, golf, and touch football. His specialist hobby is kitset models.
