REFEREE KNOCKED OUT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1026, 17 July 1930, Page 18

REFEREE KNOCKED OUT

RUGBY SENSATION IN TARANAKI PLAYER GUILTY OF ASSAULT Press Association NEW PLYMOUTH, Today. Having struck the referee. Mi Kenneth A. Nodder, in a Rugby match between Okato and Tukapa at Okato on June 7, E. Roebuck pleaded guilty before Mr. R. W. Tate, S.M., to a charge of assault yesterday On a second charge of using indecent language on the ground. Roebuck elected to be tried by the Lower Court and was convicted. Sentence was deferred until Wednesday. The referee and two Tukapa players stated that the referee had ordered G. Roebuck off the field. E. Roebuck asked why his brother had been put ofi!. and the referee said, “For giving cheek.” E. Roebuck replied, “A fine referee you are!” The referee told him to go to the side-liae, and as he was going stopped him and asked, “What is your name?” "Roebuck, you answered defendant, at the same time striking the referee and knocking him unconscious. The defence admitted the assault under extenuating circumstances, claiming that the game was heated and the referee unfair. Evidence was given by spectators, all of whom said Roebuck used no indecent language. The Magistrate: it seems to mo this has been a case of straining at a gnat after having swallowed a camel. Defendant pleads guilty to a very serious offence, and then strenuously defends himself on a comparatively minor charge. I believe the witnesses for the prosecution and enter a con viction. “The situation Is this,” he continued. “We are at a parting of the ways. If football, in itself a very fine game, is to remain a fine game and of value to the community, its government must be strictly controlled, and such things as striking a referee must be in practice a thing utterly out of the question.”