Nigel Owens

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2017

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the rugby union referee Nigel Owens. His steely authority and quick wit on the field have won him worldwide praise - he's widely regarded as one of the best referees in the business for the impact he makes on the flow and coherence of a game. In 2015 he became the second Welsh official since 1991 to referee a World Cup Final - in a memorable match between New Zealand and Australia. Born and raised in a small village in Carmarthenshire, he first picked up the whistle aged 16, when it became clear to both his teacher and himself that he wouldn't make much impact as a player. A former school technician and farm worker, he broke through onto the international refereeing circuit in 2005 and took charge of his first Test when Japan hosted Ireland in Osaka that summer. In 2007 he became one of the first high-profile sports professionals to come out as gay - a courageous move in a sport which often defines the word macho. He has spoken about this decision as being the biggest challenge he has ever faced - even more so than officiating an international match under intense scrutiny in front of 95,000 spectators and a global TV audience. The severe depression he experienced coming to terms with his sexuality culminated in an attempt to take his own life in his twenties. He now says the unwavering support he has received from the rugby authorities, the players and the fans has enabled him to be true to himself and carry on working in the game he loves. Producer: Paula McGinley.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:03.0	Hello, I'm Kirstie Young.
0:04.0	Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4.
0:09.0	For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the Radio broadcast.
0:13.0	For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk- Radio 4.
0:30.0	Music
0:41.0	My cast away this week is the Rugby Union referee Nigel Owens.
0:45.0	He is a rare creature widely regarded as the best riff in the business.
0:49.0	He's respected and even liked by players and much admired by fans for the impact he makes on a match's coherence and flow.
0:58.0	But it's not just his superb skill in keeping 30 marauding men in check over 80 brutal minutes of play, but also because in a sport marinated in Mekismo, he has the courage to be openly gay.
1:10.0	His happy childhood in a tiny, close-knit village in South West Wales came at a price.
1:15.0	As a young man, he struggled to come to terms with who he was and aged 24 was lucky to survive a suicide attempt.
1:22.0	He says, all that matters is you should be allowed to be yourself and treated with the same respect as everybody.
1:29.0	And rugby has allowed me and anybody else to be who they are.
1:33.0	So welcome Nigel Owens.
1:35.0	I can look you square in the eye and say there is a discernible difference in any match that you are referring in and I have watched many of them.
1:43.0	The rules of the game are important, clearly, and you know them back to front, but you seem to hold in your mind all times the flow of the game.
1:51.0	So how do you balance those two things? Because you do it differently from most reps.
1:55.0	Learning the laws and knowing the laws of the game and knowing when to blow the whistle, that's the easy job of refereeing.
2:02.0	The secret then is knowing when not to blow it.
2:05.0	And that is the balance that you need to get right if you want to be a top referee and remain at the top is a feel for the gain and empathy or the place of trying to achieve, but also setting your boundaries out of what is acceptable and what is not.
2:18.0	It's not always easy to get it, even if you've got the knack of doing that sometimes in games you let something go that you should have blown and something that you've blown you thought I should have let that go.
	...

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