The Army Rugby Union Referees Society was delighted to receive the news, that one of our Honorary Life Members, Stuart Gray-Cowan has been awarded with Life Membership by the Yorkshire Federation, for his contribution to the community game over many years since leaving the Army.
Stuart joined the Royal Signals in 1964, serving in the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) and Far East Land Forces (FARELF) in Singapore, before retiring as a Captain. As a keen Rugby player, he represented his unit, his Corps and the Army. Whilst based in the UK during the 1970’s, he played for Huddersfield, had a trial for Yorkshire County and represented Dorset and Wiltshire County.
He started his officiating career in 1991 for ARURS and East Riding of Yorkshire Referees. In 2004/2005 he stopped refereeing and started to watch and advise referees for ARURS, CSRR and Yorkshire. He quickly developed into an excellent observer of referees, with a keen eye for potential, and was accepted onto the RFU North Group (Level 5) for the 2007/2008 season, which continued until 2016/2017. He progressed up to the role of a North Group Assessor, helping many promising referees to develop and push higher up the officiating levels. He continued to watch referees of East Yorkshire Society until 2019, where he then took on the role of Coaching Co-ordinator/GADO for ARURS and CSRR. Stuart excelled in this position, directly assisting another of our members as the RFU Team Leader of Division North/North Group.
Stuart has been a very active member of the Yorkshire Federation and of the Society of East Yorkshire, undertaking many administration roles, such as, Referee, Adviser, Assessor, Match Observer, Trainer, Referee coach and Appointer. For these services, representatives of the 5 member societies [at the AGM] unanimously approved Stuart to become a Life Member of the Yorkshire Federation of Referees. He had been already bestowed with lifetime membership from ARURS at the end of the 2015/2016 season. He continues to serve on the East Yorkshire Committee as Advisers Appointments Secretary.
We send our warmest congratulations to Stuart for his many years of commitment and determination towards Rugby and wish him all the best for his retirement.
Thanks to Maj (Retd) Sid Goodall for the detail.
Link to the Yorkshire Referees announcement.
Words © ARURS
