Tommy Sugrue is a

Gaelic football Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...

referee from

County Kerry County Kerry ( gle, Contae Chiarraí) is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and forms part of the province of Munster. It is named after the Ciarraige who lived in part of the present county. The population of the co ...

. He is from, and lives in,

Tralee Tralee ( ; ga, Trá Lí, ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the Lee River') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in County ...

. Sugrue refereed four

finals Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

of the All-Ireland SFC during the 1980s and 1990s:

1988 File:1988 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The oil platform Piper Alpha explodes and collapses in the North Sea, killing 165 workers; The USS Vincennes (CG-49) mistakenly shoots down Iran Air Flight 655; Australia celebrates its Australian ...

(both the drawn game and replay),

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

and

1994 File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which Sinking of the MS Estonia, sank in ...

Career

He began refereeing in 1977, got given the 1983 Kerry County Final. Then off it all went for him. He got

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

in the 1983 National League semi-final then he gotput onto to the inter-county referees' panel. He did more than 13 years of inter-county. He refereed National Football League semi-finals and finals (he refreed the 1990 National Football League final wearing socks), he refereed four All Ireland SFC semi-finals, an

All-Ireland Under-21 Football Championship The GAA Football Under-20 All-Ireland Championship (known for sponsorship reasons as the EirGrid GAA Football Under-20 All-Ireland Championship) is an annual inter-county Gaelic football competition organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association ( ...

and Club Final, he refereed in the

Munster Munster ( gle, an Mhumhain or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the south of Ireland. In early Ireland, the Kingdom of Munster was one of the kingdoms of Gaelic Ireland ruled by a "king of over-kings" ( ga, rí ruirech). Following the ...

and

Ulster Senior Football Championship The Ulster Senior Football Championship is an inter-county competition for Gaelic football teams in the province of Ulster. It is organised by the Ulster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and begins in early May. The final is usu ...

s. He refereed the four All-Ireland SFC finals: 1988's Cork v Meath (drawn game and replay); 1992's

Donegal Donegal may refer to: County Donegal, Ireland * County Donegal, a county in the Republic of Ireland, part of the province of Ulster * Donegal (town), a town in County Donegal in Ulster, Ireland * Donegal Bay, an inlet in the northwest of Ireland b ...

v Dublin; 1994's Down v Dublin. Sugrue refereed four

of the

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) ( ga, Craobh Shinsir Peile na hÉireann) is the premier competition in Gaelic football. An annual tournament organised by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), it is contested by the county ...

. First came the 1988 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, contested by Meath and Cork, the game when they got a Kerryman to referee a Cork game. This ended in a draw so there was a replay, which Sugrue also refereed and which Meath won by a point. Sugrue then refereed the 1992 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final between Donegal and Dublin. He gave a penalty to Dublin a penalty early in the game. The Dubs thought they had the game won easy.

Charlie Redmond Charles Redmond is a Dublin-born former Gaelic footballer who played at senior level for the Dublin county team and current manager of Trinity Gaels seniors. His notoriety within the game was secured during the 1995 All-Ireland Senior Footba ...

, faced with

Gary Walsh Gary Walsh (born 21 March 1968) is an English football coach and professional former footballer who was most recently head goalkeeping coach at EFL Championship club West Bromwich Albion. As a player, he was a goalkeeper from 1985 to 2006, not ...

, stepped up to take the kick. Redmond missed. Dublin never recovered and Donegal easily outscored them to claim their first All-Ireland title. Then the 1994 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final between Down and (again) Dublin. Dublin couldn't win that one either. Of the four All-Ireland SFC finals that Sugrue refereed it was the 1992 final that he was most pleased with, because Donegal won it. In 2018,

Martin Breheny use both this parameter and , birth_date to display the person's date of birth, date of death, and age at death) --> , death_place = , nationality = , other_names = , siglum = , citizenship = , ...

listed the 1988 replay and 1992 as the tenth and seventh greatest All-Ireland SFC final respectively. Sugrue spoke to ''

The Irish Times ''The Irish Times'' is an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper and online digital publication. It launched on 29 March 1859. The editor is Ruadhán Mac Cormaic. It is published every day except Sundays. ''The Irish Times'' is considered a newspaper ...

'' before the

1996 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final The 1996 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final was the 109th All-Ireland Final and the deciding match of the 1996 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, an inter-county Gaelic football tournament for the top teams in Ireland. It we ...

replay about his own experience from the 1988 replay, which was the last time this had happened. He said: "It's the last thing a referee needs, going through it all again, the sleepless nights, not being able to eat, getting sick. Everyone knows the sacrifices players make for these big occasions. It's the same for referees. I've a local semi-final coming up and I'm training four nights a week. It's the last thing you want, having to psyche yourself to go through the physical torment and the things that get said, even phone calls to your house. It has a terrible effect on your family. I know it's the same for players but they could be on a holiday in the Canaries in a few months. A referee gets nothing. I don't envy

Pat McEnaney Pat McEnaney (born 1960/1961/1962/1963) is a Gaelic footballer and referee from Corduff in County Monaghan. He officiated many high-profile inter-county matches, including four finals of the All-Ireland SFC. Many would rate McEnaney as the bes ...

going through it all again."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sugrue, Tommy Year of birth missing (living people) Living people All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final referees Gaelic football referees People from Tralee