Colin Frederick Pearce was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n rugby league

Rugby league

Rugby league football, usually called rugby league, is a full contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular grass field. One of the two codes of rugby football, it originated in England in 1895 by a split from Rugby Football Union over paying players...

 referee. He is one of
the most widely known and widely respected referees in the history of Rugby League.

Pearce, born in Newtown, New South Wales

Newtown, New South Wales

Newtown, a suburb of Sydney's inner west is located approximately four kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, straddling the local government areas of the City of Sydney and Marrickville Council in the state of New South Wales, Australia....

, was originally more interested in cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

 but that changed to Rugby League due to
his fascination with the rules and interpretations of the rules of Rugby League. He began
refereeing in 1946, promoted to first grade fixtures towards the end of the 1947 season. He then took
charge of nine test matches between 1960 and 1967, three World Cup matches in
1968 and six Grand Finals, his first being in 1955 and then the others between
1964 and 1968. He enjoyed a career of 343 first grade games. He was
authoritative yet he allowed the game to flow. He had a keen relationship with the players
where they would show him respect due to his fair and consistent decision making. His motto
was that Rugby League referees should "eat, sleep and drink the rules of Rugby League." He
was elected to the Rugby League Referee's Examination Board in 1951.

After his retirement from Rugby League refereeing he had a long career as a Rugby League commentator in the Sydney electronic and print media, with 2UE

2UE

2UE is a commercial radio station in Sydney, Australia owned by Fairfax Media. It is Sydney's and Australia's oldest commercial radio station, first broadcasting on 26 January 1925 on 1025 kHz AM before moving to 950 kHz in 1935 when virtually all Australian radio stations were assigned new...

, Channel 7

Seven Network

The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...

 and The Sydney Morning Herald

The Sydney Morning Herald

The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...

.

Pearce later became a journalist, writing featured columns for The Sun-Herald

The Sun-Herald

The Sun-Herald is an Australian tabloid newspaper published on Sundays in Sydney by Fairfax Media. It is the Sunday counterpart of The Sydney Morning Herald. In the 6 months to September 2005, The Sun-Herald had a circulation of 515,000...

.

Pearce died from pneumonia on 10 June 2004, aged 86.

Col Pearce's grand finals – match reports

1955,
1964,
1965,
1966,
1967,
1968.