Brian Anderson is a retired

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

rugby Union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other title ...

who took charge of nineteen major international matches. The international matches that he officiated over took place between 1985 and 1991 and included matches at the first two

Rugby World Cup The Men's Rugby World Cup is a rugby union tournament contested every four years between the top international teams, the winners of which are recognised as the World championship, world champions of the sport. The tournament is administer ...

s. When he retired in 1991, he had refereed the most internationals by any Scot.

Refereeing career

His first international match in charge was a

Five Nations Championship The Six Nations Championship (known as the Six Nations, branded as Guinness M6N) is an annual international rugby union competition by the teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. It is the oldest sports tournament contes ...

match between Wales and England on 17 January 1981 at

Cardiff Arms Park Cardiff Arms Park (), also known as The Arms Park, is primarily a rugby union stadium, and also has a bowling green. It is situated in Cardiff, Wales, next to the Millennium Stadium. The Arms Park was host to the 1958 British Empire and Common ...

. In the

1987 Rugby World Cup The 1987 Rugby World Cup was the first Rugby World Cup. It was co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia – New Zealand hosted 21 matches (17 pool stage matches, two semi-finals, the third-place play-off and the final) while Australia hosted 11 mat ...

he refereed the pool match between Australia and the United States at

Ballymore Stadium Ballymore is a rugby union stadium situated in Herston, a suburb of Brisbane, Australia. It is the headquarters of Queensland Rugby Union and was the home ground of the Brisbane City team in the National Rugby Championship, until the league's ...

in Brisbane on 31 May 1987, then the quarter final match between Australia and Ireland, played at the

Concord Oval Concord Oval (also Waratah Stadium) is a rugby football stadium in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Concord, Australia. The stadium can hold 5000 people, as of November 2022, down from 20,000 when it opened in 1985. , it is used mostly for r ...

in Sydney. He was referee in semi-final between Australia and France on 13 June 1987. Anderson was a touch judge in the 1987 Rugby World Cup Final played between New Zealand and France on 20 June. In the 1991 Rugby World Cup he was referee of the pool A match between England and Italy on 8 October 1991 and the pool C match between Argentina vs West Samoa at Sardis Road,

Pontypridd Pontypridd ( , ), Colloquialism, colloquially referred to as ''Ponty'', is a town and a Community (Wales), community in Rhondda Cynon Taf, South Wales, approximately 10 miles north west of Cardiff city centre. Geography Pontypridd comprises the ...

on 13 October 1991. In the quarter final match between Ireland vs Australia on 20 October he was a touch judge. Anderson's last international refereeing appearance on 13 October 1991 was at the World Cup match between Argentina and Western Samoa in Pontypridd where he had to retire from his duties having sustained a hamstring injury during that match and was replaced by his fellow Scottish Referee, Jim Fleming. In December 1991, he retired from refereeing, citing his reasons as "personal and business". The International Rugby Football Board's new rule came into force and limited the panel of referees to three per country. The SRU secretary Bill Hogg paid tribute to Anderson on his retirement, saying that

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Anderson, Brian Living people Rugby union officials Scottish rugby union referees Rugby World Cup referees Year of birth missing (living people)