Ron Roberts rolls up his flags after one of his 4000-plus matches umpiring football. Picture: JARROD POTTER
By JARROD POTTER
With over 50 years of experience as a football umpire, Ron Roberts has achieved it all. On top of that, he’s a doctor, inventor, teacher, and friend to all that meet him. On a metal landing out the back of the Noble Park Football Oval, he told Jarrod Potter how he has spent an amazingly impressive life, with no intent on slowing down as he approached his 80th birthday.
MOST people would be happy to achieve a fraction of what Dr Ron Roberts has ticked off in an amazing lifetime.
He’s a former Footscray (now Western Bulldogs) footballer, proudly ‘Footscray born-and-bred’ he says with pride, and played alongside his mates Ted Whitten, Johnny Kerr, Peter Box and Jackie Collins and almost snagged himself a game in the 1956 VFL grand final. That would be impressive enough for anyone.
Once his VFL football days finished, following a premiership victory with Hampton Methodist, Ron switched the colours for the whites, becoming a field umpire in 1960, after a shocking match he was playing in where he decided he could do better. 52 years as an umpire? Anyone would be happy with that achievement alone.
“I was playing with Hampton Methodist at the time and I actually played a game of football where the umpire was “so atrocious” the players were stopping themselves from hitting each other and fighting themselves, so I thought to myself, ‘I can do better than this’ and I took on the game from there on and have umpired every Saturday and Sunday since that time,” Ron said.
He has umpired across most leagues in Victoria – starting with South East Suburban Churches (South Eastern Suburban), heading up to the Ballarat League (also standing as secretary for the Ballarat YMCA), then across to Peninsula League and through various other associations before ending up at the South East Juniors, closing in on 80 years old and still going strong.
He hopes to continue the craft in some capacity, whether as a mentor or administrator as long as he can, and he was the happiest man on the field in the Officer Kangaroos/Narre North Foxes grand final in the South East Juniors on Sunday.
“I’ve got another year to go at least, I’ll turn 80 then and that’s my goal, then I’ll weight it up after that,” Ron said. “Administrator, mentor, whatever it takes I’ll do it. I just love it – just love football.”
He’s lost count of the number of matches he’s officiated in, but most estimates suggest it has surpassed 4000, and he believes umpiring has always remained noble and unfettered by those intent on derailing the great Australian game.
“In all the time I’ve been umpiring, I’ve never known it to be intruded by unworthiness, it’s always been honest and fair, never known people to put anything on your lap,” Ron said.
“The worst thing that’s ever happened to me is a spray of beer on me on the way out of a match.”
So he devotes every Saturday and Sunday to the sport he loves, but what has occupied his time during the week?
This is how impressive Ron is – after completing a Bachelor of Arts and teaching for 20 years, his focus shifted to natural medicine and finding ways to counteract and overcome problems associated with asthma – a condition that he’s had since childhood.
“Was in the department as a schoolteacher for 20-odd years and they looked after me,” Ron said.
“After that I became very interested in alternative medicine – I graduated as a naturopath, then as a chiropractor, then as an acupuncturist.
“The alternative medicine, sport and physical activities is just part my life.”
His asthma control techniques, spelled out in meticulous detail in his book Asthma Controlled Naturally, co-written with Judy Sammut, have been extremely effective and popular – former Collingwood captain Gavin Brown has used his techniques, as have 29,999 other people who have purchased his book.
“I’ve been an asthmatic all my life and one of my joys is that I’ve written a book on how asthma is controlled naturally and I’ve sold about 30,000 copies of that,” Ron said. “I’m a bit of a guru in relief techniques of asthma.”
The great irony is that between his two passions, asthma control and umpiring, there is a common link – people blowing into whistles helps relieve the severity of an asthma attack according to Ron.
With four degrees, 4000 matches as an umpire, being a 20-year veteran of teaching and a published author, most would say that is a life well spent.
That still isn’t enough to sum up Ron.
He’s a great inventor, helping create salves, rubs, ointments and sprays to lessen muscle aches and is currently working on a ‘no-drip’ liquor bottle insert to create The Perfect Pour.
Still not enough for Ron. He runs an indoor bowls association at the retirement village he equates to ‘living on a luxury cruiser’ at the Blue Hills Retirement Centre in Cranbourne, still swims every day and admits while he doesn’t run as much as he used to, he tries to stay active as much as possible.
With a curriculum vitae the length of a small nation’s constitution, Ron has reason to brag, but chooses not to, instead living each day on it’s merit and always wanting to help cultivate the next generation – whether they want to be politicians, business administrators or follow his footsteps into umpiring.
“I can’t pinpoint what my favourite thing is as I live each day one day at a time and every day is a good day,” Ron said.
“The feeling of winning is so good I tell my lady and she says it’s only a game, but it isn’t.
“It brings out the best in you and if you can get the best out of yourself, it carries right through life.
“That attitude of comradeship and togetherness, it brings out the future politicians, administrators and leaders.”
The growth of umpiring and professionalism that has come to sport at all levels impresses him and can only see good things coming from the next crop of kids.
“What I’m very impressed with, I was at a meeting on Friday, with the South East Juniors league, and there were 200 kids there, immaculately dressed, well presented and I thought to myself that we’ve got nothing to worry about in the future,” Ron said.
“I saw today (Sunday) four girls umpiring the boundaries and I almost cried.
“They were impressive and polished and we’ve got nothing to worry about – this generation will sort out the rough stuff and the badness here.
“They’ll become politicians and business administrators and they’ll change it – they’ll become leaders and they’ll change the world for the better.”
With all these things going for him, at the end of the day he still is a loving partner that manages to annoy his partner Joyce with the simplest of problems … muddy boots.
“She hates the mud. She hoses me down,” Ron said.
“She hates the mud, gets the broom and follows me around with the vacuum cleaner.
“She’s been good to me though, I lost my wife about 20 odd years ago, but Joyce is a great golfer, played bowls and is extremely talented in sport and I love her.”
So every Saturday and Sunday after Ron has completed running between the posts and waving the flags, he finds a pair of slippers at the front door and always smiles.
