December 2002 Volume 83 Number 12 "serving the protectors"
The cop with the umpire’s Golden Whistle
By Brett Williams

Tim Pfeiffer once tried to persuade former AFL great, Tony Lockett, to release an opposition player from a “choker hold” at the Whitten Oval. But for the full-time police prosecutor and part-time umpire from Adelaide, it was no easy task.

The hulking Lockett, on his way to a haul of 16 goals, seemed in no mood to succumb to persuasion. Nonetheless, he could not keep Fitzroy’s Mark Zanotti trapped in his vice-like grip forever and finally released him.

The 1995 incident, however, left Pfeiffer rather than Lockett to face repercussions. “That was the last game I umpired that year,” he says. “According to the AFL, I didn’t handle it correctly.

“They thought I should have reported him for wrestling, but it wasn’t him who started the whole thing.”

Pfeiffer’s four-year term as an AFL umpire came to an end in 1997. But he left with treasured memories of the many blockbuster games of which he had taken charge.

Still foremost in his memory is the first Collingwood-Essendon Anzac Day clash at the MCG in 1995. Pfeiffer took delight in the high emotion of The Last Post, the roaring crowd of 95,000 and the titanic on-field battle that ended in a draw.

After he parted company with the AFL, Pfeiffer continued to umpire for the SANFL. Today, he remains with the local league and was, in early October, honoured with the Golden Whistle award for 2002. Each year, the SANFL presents the award to its most outstanding field umpire.

After 253 games in the SANFL and 44 in the AFL, Pfeiffer was thrilled to have won the award for the third time. “There are a few highlights we have during the year,” he says. “One’s the state game, another would be getting the grand final and the third would be to win the Golden Whistle.”

Pfeiffer first took on the role of umpire as a 16-year-old in 1984. He had played football for eight years before then but gave it away after breaking both his arms in one season.

He umpired schoolboy football in the southern suburbs and Murray Bridge until 1989, when the SANFL spotted his ability through a talent identification programme.

“Then I started off doing under-17s and under-19s down here,” he says. “You work your way up through the ranks to the league, and that’s how it all started.

“It’s just fantastic to stay involved in footy, and have the ability to umpire at league level. You have a lot of fun with the blokes out there while you’re running around. So, there’s the comradeship side of it, and the ability to stay fit.”

Through each football season, Pfeiffer trains with his fellow umpires two nights per week and goes through a “recovery session” on Sunday mornings. In addition to skills – such as the unique Aussie Rules bounce – a high-intensity weeknight workout might involve 10 sprints of 200 metres, or four one-kilometre runs.

In the off-season period, Pfeiffer cycles and swims as a lead-up to pre-season training, which begins in January.

“We meet as a group in about the second week of January,” he says. “We’re expected to be probably 98 per cent fit by the time we hit the track, so you can’t allow yourself to go too much.”

Onto the field, Pfeiffer takes a philosophy of good communication with the players. If he fails to award a deserved a free kick, or imagines a non-existent one, he admits his mistake to the player concerned.

“If you can tell them that,” he says, “I think you disarm them, and they get on with it after that.”

Of his responsibility to report players, Pfeiffer says it is sometimes an unpleasant task. He regrets that those who provoke incidents might escape his notice, leaving him to report only “the retaliator”.

Also unpleasant, but of no concern to Pfeiffer, is the game’s share of abusive spectators. He has so far survived a child lemon-thrower and an elderly woman who shook her umbrella in his face at Adelaide Oval.

“You’d get an ulcer if you took it all personally,” he says. “I have a bit of a laugh to myself. I suppose they come to vent their frustrations. If they can do that on a Saturday instead of knocking someone’s block off on the street, then it’s achieved its purpose.”

To Pfeiffer, his two jobs – as a field umpire and police prosecutor – clearly complement one another. The key to both, he believes, is the ability for quick thinking and decision-making.

He even suggests umpiring as a worthwhile pursuit for his police colleagues. “It’s a way of maintaining your fitness,” he says, “and you get some social interaction with the players.

“You don’t have to be an outstanding athlete to umpire a game of football. You just need common sense, which I think coppers have. The only other skill to learn after that is how to blow a whistle.”

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