Possibly. Though in the seven seasons we had a season ticket behind him, I don't think I heard him speak even once! Did he actually celebrate our goals? I should have paid more attention!
That was the penalty incident. Colchester home I think, just before half time. They missed it, we won anyway, but he did indeed spend the entire of the rest of the match buzzing around the perimeter wall stalking the officials. I think he had to be restrained during the penalty to save us from being docked points!
Just in case it hasn't been verified elsewhere, I can confirm Ref Man is still present. To be fair he seems to have mellowed a bit, but there's at least a few refs per season that set him off.
I know he moved to France a few years ago. Even then came back from time to time. Wonder if he's back for good?
Rumour has it that he went to star in a remake of the 1984 French film, "A mort l'arbitre" (Kill the Referee). This is actually a real film. "Disgruntled soccer fans stalk a referee (Eddy Mitchell) and his girlfriend (Carole Laure) after a ruling goes against their team." He'd be a shoe-in for the lead role. Probably wouldn't even need to rehearse.
Anyone else going through this thread with a fine tooth comb to make sure you're not mentioned? So far so good.
When I was at work, one of my contacts was the Principal Lighting Engineer of Rotherham Council. Uncannily his name was Howard Webb. He had to temporarily move from his house after his name sake Howard Webb the referee awarded a late penalty to Austria that saw Poland exit Euro 2008. He showed us the vile e-mails threatening to kill him. When Howard retired ,as well as the normal gifts you could expect to receive someone sent him a red and yellow card and a Refs whistle. He laughed but at the time it was happening it was a scary time for him, his wife and family. http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/engineer-gets-death-threats-in-mix-313494
When working at a certain well-known insurance company, I discovered that Gary Willard of Worthing had called us for a quote. Everything was there - his full name, address, phone number, car reg. Everything. I discussed with my colleagues the possibility of posting everything on the BBS, and answers ranged from "definitely, I don't think referees are accountable enough" to "are you sure it's him, what if it's actually the Reverend Gary Willard?" In the end I thought better of it (especially as I would have been in breach of the Data Protection Act), but I did phone him once when plastered and sing "the referee's a w@nker". To his wife.
Must have been the only fan in football history to have had "Ghent" on the back of his shirt. From what I remember he also had some pretty obscure outfield players on his other replica shirts.