DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       RateTheRef
  HTML https://ratetheref.createaforum.com
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       *****************************************************
   DIR Return to: I Spy Old Refs!
       *****************************************************
       #Post#: 63752--------------------------------------------------
       Gilbert Archers Mildenhall ( Assistant 1970 -1996) 
       By: mutn3 Date: May 8, 2023, 5:50 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Gil was a rum 'un.  Quite how he managed such service was
       probably because he was a fallen MI6 Officer, with secrets held
       aplenty. Perhaps those secrets touched those in high office, who
       knows?
       Born in 1920, he became the oldest FL Assistant since JCFC, and
       only retired at 76 to give younger officials an opportunity. He
       officiated in 499 FL games, and his crowning appointment would
       have been to Clive White, in the '82 final, only to be sent
       overseas for a little background research of the political
       here's and there's of Zimbabwe, where he stayed only the summer,
       knowing he couldn't miss that first game of the season, forever
       at Spotland.
       A childhood in Govan prepares you for most things, but moving to
       Chichester to be a Choirboy, singing in front of King Edward
       Vlll and that American woman, he soon had a tongue for German,
       and it was here he was parachuted behind the lines in '44,
       posing as a Prussian schoolteacher, feeding back to Whitehall
       anything of importance, and more than doing his bit. The MI6
       posting, successful though it was for a time, ended in disgrace.
       The full story isn't available, but a dalliance with Carmen
       Miranda along the way did suggest that if not his judgement, his
       discretion may have been awry.
       Finding succour in football, he was never interviewed for the
       middle, perhaps those career plusses didn't quite outweigh those
       minuses (and we haven't even mentioned Tangier!).
       Upon leaving the FL, at seventy six, but still good for the
       Cooper Test, he retired to the hometown seasonal caravan park of
       his beloved wife, Ethel, at Skegness, where he ran the seafront
       bingo until just a week before his death at 103. A life well
       lived !
       Cmon all, we are in danger of making this section of RTR just a
       list. Let's hear those stories again, though hopefully more
       truthful than this!,
       *****************************************************