Murray Sydenham to retire at years end

Club legend and life member of the association, Murray Sydenham is retiring from the role of referee advisor at the end of 2022.

“I started refereeing at 13 years old in Leongatha,” Sydenham said.

Several years later and after a break from whistleblowing, Murray made the move down to Southern Peninsula and re-embarked the refereeing ranks at the age of 25.

However, the refereeing foundations quickly became unstable and Murray found himself trying to hold it all together.

“We had a lot of senior refs pull out about three years into my time here. They all stopped reffing about the same time… I’ve only been here three years and just got my A grade and I’m the senior ref now and I thought, okay, I’ve got to start doing more of this. That was where the association needed me more than anywhere else so that was where I went,” he said.

Murray grew as a referee and began to take on more responsibility. 

He became a level 3A accredited referee, and even played some nights and coached on others.

Murray began as a referee advisor in the 1980’s at Southern Peninsula.

“Watching kids grow and watching people grow,” was the thing Murray got most out of becoming a referee advisor during his time here.

“You wouldn’t do it for the money, you’d only fo it for watching people’s development,” he said.

Southern Peninsula has produced some great refereeing talent under Murray’s guidance.

“We’ve got an NBL referee, Chris Clark, we’ve had Kelly Knight who reffed 350 games, most of which in the WNBL, and Chris Knight who was a SEABL referee and we’ve now got Bianca (Vernon) who has gone to WNBL,” he said.

Murray was a Big V official for 15 years, with one of his favourite moments coming during the Big V Champiosnship Men’s Grand Final in 1998.

“I was in Warnambool refereeing and there was a big block on the far side of the court, opposite side to the grandstand.

“There was a big blocked shot on the far side of the court but nobody could sit on the far side of the court because they had plywood walls over there,” Murray said.

“I was right underneath the play and I could see the defenders hip resting on the guys shoulder who was trying to shoot.

“So I called a foul and everybody on the grandstand side goes up because all they can see is the blocked shot.

“It was really funny because the Warnambool crowd knew me quite well so they were yelling boos and started chanting, ‘Murray’s a w****r.’

“I’m just giggling and laughing, thinking I can’t do anything about this, I’m just going to have to cop it… then I look in the crowd and I see my wife clapping along with them,” Murray said.

Sydenham was awarded Southern Peninsula Association’s inaguaral Les Thomas Award in 1991 for his contributions to basketball as a committee member, referee, referee advisor and coach.