Sydney Sunrise

Today, I’m sharing an interview with former NRL referee Bill Harrigan from my own career archives, having worked in radio for a fairly long time.

I’m not too sure how many people outside of dedicated Rugby League fans remember Bill now, but back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was a legend—the face of refereeing in the game. When he released his autobiography, The Bill Harrigan Story, I interviewed him about his life both on and off the field.

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🎙️ Summary of the Bill Harrigan Interview

In this interview, Bill Harrigan offers a rare perspective on refereeing Rugby League, explaining that he can’t enjoy the game like a spectator because he’s constantly focusing on rules and angles, noting that television angles often misrepresent his view. He addresses the public perception that he is “arrogant” and “up himself,” stating that his autobiography was intended to change that view by revealing his background as a police officer and his personality. Harrigan recounts a terrifying experience in 1985 while serving with the Tactical Response Group during the Bathurst bike riots, where he was fire-fighting police officers hit by Molotov cocktails and had to run for his life after chasing a rioter. He clarifies that he left the police force not due to fear, but for the opportunity to become a full-time referee in 1995. Finally, he shares the humorous anecdote of appearing on the dating show Perfect Match in the early eighties to win a travel prize, admitting he and his match “spiced it up” for the cameras even though he was seeing someone else. He concludes by expressing concern about his career prospects after retirement, noting the financial necessity of finding a new job immediately.

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🎙️ ABC ARCHIVES: Interview with Bill Harrigan

Bill Harrigan: First. I’m involved in the game that much that it’s a methodical thing where I’m just going through the rules and watching the play and calling the shots and all that sort of thing. So I don’t get to enjoy it like a spectator does in the grandstand all back in, you know, sitting in their lounge room. And that’s why I’ve got to go home and watch it. And I haven’t had an opportunity yet. I’ve been too busy since the grand final. But in saying that too, I get a whole a different view to what you do. And a lot of people make this mistake. They go, oh, why didn’t he see that forward pass? But they’re seeing it from the camera angle or from where they’re sitting in the grandstand. Now, when I’m down on ground level, I’m looking through I’ve got a different angle completely. So I’ve got a different perspective of it. I’ve got players in front of me. Um, I may be looking at something else and just miss something. And yet people say, oh, how could he miss that? But they’re seeing a completely different angle to what I am.

James O’Brien: Do you ever get confused by what’s going on? Do you ever find yourself thinking, hang on, stuff’s going on here. I don’t know what’s going on.

Bill Harrigan: You do that sometimes if you get a pinball effect. And that is when someone kicks the ball and then it hits somebody and it ricochets off him and hits somebody else and then hits somebody else, and then all of a sudden somebody’s got the ball and running and you’re thinking, what happened there? And then you quickly replay it back in your mind and you go hit him. Went to him, went to him. It’s okay. Play on or you go knock on.

James O’Brien: So even though if it’s not immediately obvious, you still can sort of recount things.

Bill Harrigan: Yeah. The biggest thing is to try and get it right. And so sometimes you may have a, it might only be a second, second and a half delay in making a decision, but that seems like an eternity to everybody else because you’re thinking, jeez, he blew that whistle late. What’s going on? But what you’re doing is you’re replaying it over in your mind and you’re going, bang! Yeah, that happened, that happened, that happened. Oh yeah. Play on or do this. And that’s why the delays there.

James O’Brien: Now you’re out and about promoting your autobiography. Why do you think people want to read the Bill Harrigan story?

Bill Harrigan: Um, well, I’m hoping I’ve got a profile big enough and people are interested enough to pick up the book and have a look at it. And when they do, and they read about it because it’s not just about football and about my refereeing days. It’s about days in the cops and growing up and my beliefs and that sort of thing. But I think the biggest thing that I’m trying to achieve there is there is a perception of who Bill Harrigan is or who I’m like.

James O’Brien: What do you think the perception is?

Bill Harrigan: Well, the perception is that this bloke’s up himself and he’s arrogant and all that sort of thing. And and my wife had that at the start with the guy who wrote the book with me, Daniel Lane. His attitude was, yeah, this this bloke’s Hollywood. He’s certainly changed. When you pick up the book and you read it, I think you’ll change your opinion.

James O’Brien: There are some really interesting little bits of trivia in the book that I came across. I mean, obviously we know the big picture story, but there are a couple of nice little stories that I hope you might tell. Uh, in the mid eighties, you were part of the Tactical Response group of the New South Wales Police. You were in a pretty dangerous situation in Bathurst at Easter with the bike riots. Can you explain what happened there?

Bill Harrigan: Yes. Nineteen eighty five Bathurst bike races. And every year it’s. And it’s not bikie gangs either. It’s just bikers who go up there and some of them then drink too much. Think okay, let’s have a bit of fun. We’ll go out and we’ll rock the police compound. And so they start rocking it with bottles and rocks. Then it becomes Molotov cocktails and soaked toilet rolls and petrol. So they’re all flaming on fire.

James O’Brien: How old were you at the time?

Bill Harrigan: Um, back then, I was twenty five years of age, and I’d been, uh, two and a half, three years in the elite Tactical Response Group. I was in that from day one when it first was put together. Um, we’d trained for it. We got called up to help protect the twelve police officers that were just up there roaming the, you know, the hill and policing the hill just as they normally would. Um, they come under fire. So we got called up there. Out we went. By this time, there was a crowd of, you know, around four thousand people had surrounded the compound and the compound was on fire. The roof was on fire. They were out there trying to put that out. There was bottles and rocks being slammed all over the place, and we had to run out and try and stop the crowd from attacking the compound and just disperse them.

James O’Brien: How scared were you?

Bill Harrigan: Well, I was packing it. Yeah, absolutely. packing it. And, um, you know, you can put a lot more blunt than that, but we won’t. Um, but I was very scared out there. I was fearful for my life. Because in the end, as things happen, I got blokes standing beside me getting hit with Molotov cocktails. And the first hour and a half I was the fireman of of a particular line which had twelve fellows in it. If a molotov cocktail or a firebomb come over, I would run to where it looked like it was going to land. If it landed amongst our team, we wouldn’t break our line. You had to stand there and and cop it. So when it shattered, the petrol would flame and it would engulf that person. So we had fire resistant uniforms and everything on, but you still were lit up. My job was to straight away douse him with the extinguisher, put him out, and then if he had got on me, then whack it off on me as well. So that’s what I did. For the first hour and a half. One police officer, he panicked. He turned and ran. He broke the line and was running away. And I had to chase him. You can see me on footage running after him, um, trying to put him out with this extinguisher. Then after that, I went off the fireman’s position for other reasons, and I come back out into the line. And then we were called to charge, and we’d charge forward and move the crowd back, and then we’d have to regroup when we heard the whistle. And on one occasion, there was one guy who was urinating in bottles, throwing him at us, hitting us. Coppers were going down left, right and centre from this guy, and two of us chased him and we got that close to him when we heard the whistle blow to come back and reform. And both of us thought we’ve got him. And so we just went that a little bit further, chasing him, and all of a sudden we’ve chased him too far and we found ourselves amongst a crowd that then turned on us, and we end up having to run for our lives.

James O’Brien: Was it incidents like that which convinced you to leave the police force?

Bill Harrigan: No. I only left the police force eventually because I was offered the job full time refereeing. And that was something.

James O’Brien: That because you were doing part time refereeing at this stage, weren’t you?

Bill Harrigan: Yeah, I was still part time refereeing, and that was back in eighty five. And I went full time in ninety five.

James O’Brien: Was it was it a hard decision or. Um.

Bill Harrigan: No. It was. Well, yeah, it took a long time. But in the end I always I thought I was juggling refereeing and family and police work. So at the end of nineteen ninety five, I was going to retire. All I wanted to do was have one year with the new expanded competition. Because Perth had come into the competition, Auckland had come into the competition, then Super League came along in ninety five and offered full time work for referees. And so I said, yeah, that’s me. I want to have a go at this. And then I didn’t have to juggle everything around.

James O’Brien: The other bit of trivia I found from reading your book is that you were once back in the early eighties on the notorious TV show Perfect Match.

Bill Harrigan: Yes, I.

James O’Brien: Was. And you were picked.

Bill Harrigan: And I was.

James O’Brien: Picked. Okay. Can you tell us what happened there?

Bill Harrigan: Yeah, I went on that, and that was well before I was a first grade referee. So I was just unknown back in those days. But I went on I had the travel bug and I thought, yeah, I’d love to go on this. And they’re giving prizes out to travel to Bali and cruises and all that sort of thing. Why not? Yeah. So I’ll go on it. I went on there, fortunate enough to be picked, had a weekend trip to Bali, um, came back, told our story, went back on the show, ended up being the perfect match. As far as the Dexter rating goes with Wendy, the girl that chose me. We had a seventy five percent match rating, so we got an extra prize. We got one stereo system each, and I just thought the whole thing was fun and it was a great time.

James O’Brien: But you were seeing someone else at the time?

Bill Harrigan: Yes. So I had another girlfriend and I met her after I’d already applied for the show. And so I said, look, I’ve applied for this perfect match, so, you know, should I go on? And she said, yeah, that’d be great, go on and have some fun. So I did go on it. And when we came back, Wendy and I did say, look, ten couples go away each week. Only five get back on the show to tell their story. If we don’t get on, let’s make it. We really didn’t get on. So they want us to go back on the show. And if we do get on, let’s just spice it up a little bit to make it look like we really did get on well. So we still get on there to get the next prize. Yeah. Um, we got on, so we spiced it up, but it was just too spicy.

James O’Brien: See the showman even then, weren’t you?

Bill Harrigan: Yeah, I suppose so.

James O’Brien: Got me in terms of your future. Now what? After you retire from being a referee.

Bill Harrigan: If I decide to retire in the off season, which is what I’m contemplating, whether I come back again for another year or not. Um, I hope that there’s something out there for him in the media. I really I’m at a loss because I had seventeen and a half years in the police. Um, I’ve given that away and I’m thinking, okay, what am I going to do now? And, you know, the money that I’ve earned from refereeing is not enough to turn around and say, hey, I can give this one. No wonder I’m nowhere near what the players earn. So I have to get a job. So as soon as I retire, I’ve got to go and get a job. Otherwise mortgage and food on the table and everything just goes out the door. Um, so I’m just like anybody else there. What I’m going to do, I don’t know. And certainly that will come into consideration.