The last time I wrote about snooker was when Kyren Wilson dramatically reached the final of the world snooker championship in 2020. Wilson is there again, this time with less fuss, although his opponent in the final, Jak Jones, is likely to provide a stiff test. However, the focus of this piece is the way the game is officiated. The last fortnight has once again elicited a fascination within this writer regarding the snooker referee, an avatar of calm, judicious authority in a contemporary world where such a thing is increasingly difficult to find.

As a form of disclosure, this writer is vaguely familiar with the broad tenets of anarcho-syndicalism, and, let’s be honest, perhaps even a little “curious” about it. That said, when it comes to ensuring fairness of sporting competition, there is nothing to match an all-powerful benign dictator. How a snooker referee inhabits this role is both admirable and intriguing. It’s admirable in large part because of the codes and norms around snooker as a sport. Most of the players are quite honourable sportspeople who will call fouls against themselves. Fans of the sport are not only engrossed in the technical spectacle and drama it produces, but they are also generally embracing of the etiquette and decorum. You might say that makes the job easier, but the snooker referee must always retain their wits for hours at a time. They are refereeing the game as well as policing the crowd, which can be a bit rowdy in some of the venues the tour visits.

The intrigue, if one can call it that, stems from a few different things. One is that people submit readily to the referee’s authority. Though perhaps that is not so much of a mystery, because the referee can be trusted. This writer has never witnessed a snooker referee who has ever been anything other than scrupulously fair. Would that our politics would be more like this. The other curious characteristic of the snooker referee is that they are always visible and yet also strangely invisible. They are visible because they are audibly keeping the score during a break, replacing colours after they’ve been potted, calling misses if there’s been a failed escape from a snooker, calling fouls, announcing the end of a frame and resetting the table, among plenty of other functions. They are continuously vocal and active, and yet, if you are watching for any appreciable length of time, they sink into the background. They don’t detract from your focus on the players. They’re almost not there at all.

It’s difficult to make comparisons with other sports, though perhaps golf offers some parallels, in that players themselves generally accept the onus of upholding the honour of the game. But an official will only intervene if a ruling is required, and sometimes a player might engage in mild dispute, say, over the cause of a bad lie. It’s not quite as clear cut as snooker in that respect. Rugby arguably presents some apt comparisons in terms of the acceptance of the referee’s authority, but some players are often in the referee’s ear for the whole game, “helping” them with their decision making. And coaches don’t refrain from criticism if they feel hard done by. Cricket is probably less genteel than it used to be, though given the notorious “Bodyline” series was nearly a century ago, perhaps we shouldn’t be hankering for mythical Golden Ages of sportsmanship. As for football, alas, that is a whole different culture. While the drive towards technology is mostly driven by a recognition of the inherent difficulties associated with officiating (as is also the case in rugby), there is perhaps also a sense in which it derives from a paucity of trust between authorities, players, coaches and fans. Snooker perhaps benefits from not requiring much in the way of interpretation. Football especially invites more wrangling and agonised debate – designed for lawyers, even.

One of the developments in the officiating of snooker in the last twenty years has been the appearance of female referees. Michaela Tabb was the first woman to officiate at professional ranking snooker tournaments, and understandably was initially a focal point for attention. These days, there are a number of women refereeing at the highest level, including Desislava Bozhilova, Maike Kesseler, and Tatiana Woollaston, and there is no comparative undimming of the assurance they bring to the role. In truth it feels scarcely worth mentioning at all anymore. Women referees are more prominent in other sports now too, and that will also become unremarkable in most sports in good time. The one potential exception you fear you might be in football, where aggressive dissent is apparently ineradicable, and where the dinosaur element in the game has accommodated many grumbling naysayers.

This year, Paul Collier will be refereeing his last ever match in the final. I wish a drama-free experience for him, and a drama-filled experience for the rest of us.