Tony Spreadbury

Antony John "Tony" Spreadbury, commonly known as Spreaders (traditionally pronounced with a strong West Country accent), (born 28 March 1962 Bath, England) is one of the world's most respected rugby union referees, and along with Chris White and Wayne Barnes is one of England's three highest level referees.

In his earlier years, he attended Beechen Cliff School, in Bath.Spreaders, as he is known, refereed at the 2003 Rugby World Cup and has been professional since 2001. Prior to becoming a full-time referee he combined it with a career as a paramedic. Prior to becoming a referee in 1979 he played as a hooker before an injury forced him to stop. He refereed his first international test match on June 9th 1990 when he took charge of the match between Australia and France having being added to the International Rugby Board (IRB) refeering panel in 1984.

Spreadbury is a full-time referee in the Guinness Premiership, EDF Energy Cup and Heineken Cup. He once took over from an injured Chris White in the Heineken Cup Final. He is renowned for talking a lot while refereeing.

He was appointed as one of the referees at the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. Spreadbury refereed the opening game - Argentina v France. He retired from international refereeing after being dropped from the refereeing panel after the quarter final between France and New Zealand, where he inexplicably missed 2 critical infringements by the French. He made a temporary return to refereeing at the start of the 2011 Rugby World Cup qualifying in the Cayman Islands.

External links

* [http://statistics.scrum.com/rugby_stats_09.asp?ID=TSPREA scrum.com statistics]
* [http://www.planet-rugby.com/Story/0,18259,3943_2713727,00.html Tony Spreadbury - the unique referee]