Tennis Player and Referee Alan Mills

Alan Mills competes in an open lawn tennis tournament against a Surrey county player. For twenty-one years he was the championship referee at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club (AELTC) at Wimbledon where he pulled the tennis players off court as rain interrupted play. The camera would pick him up hovering at the court entrance pre-roof days with a walkie-talkie, ready for the nod. Ladies and Gentleman, play is suspended.

By the age of seventeen Mills was senior county champion in his home county of Lancashire and he went on to reach the last sixteen of the men's singles at Wimbledon twice and the semi finals of a Grand Slam in doubles. He became the first man the in the history of the Davis Cup to win a thirty-two minute match with the score 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. Mills went on to coach and umpire. The International Tennis Federation certifies officials as chair umpire, referee and chief umpire. The referee is an off-court official who supervises play, conduct of players and the public and has administrative duties such as the draw, seeding players and scheduling. He is also the final authority on the laws of the game during a tournament.