Fire still burning for the man in the middle

SPORTING PASSIONS PAT McENANEY: Mark Rodden talksto a referee who believes he understands how players are feeling as he has played soccer and Gaelic football for many years.

I USED to play Gaelic football, soccer, table tennis and tennis. I went to school in Tullow in Co Carlow, where Mount Wolseley golf course is. That was a Patrician Brothers Monastery and there was a boarding school there. I played rugby there and when I was in second year and my brother was in third year we ended up in the tennis final, where he beat me.

My family was involved in Corduff Gaelic football club and my father managed the team. I used to love playing soccer but Gaelic football was the pressure one.

I played soccer with Carrick Rovers when I was a young fella and I played with the Meath and District League. We played against Cherry Orchard in the FAI Junior Cup one time and they had about seven or eight junior internationals on the team. I would have fancied myself as a soccer player but these guys were absolutely brilliant and that game just put soccer out of my head. I was about 19 or 20 at the time and my dream of playing for Tottenham Hostpur was drastically reduced at that point.

I tore my knee cartilage playing soccer in a local tournament in Carrickmacross when I was 21. I did that in September or October and by the time the new Gaelic season started up I was still limping a bit. Páraic Duffy, director general of the GAA, was involved in refereeing back then in Monaghan and he asked me would I get involved in refereeing so that's where it all started.

I came back the following year to play football, and playing and refereeing went hand in hand. I played football until I was 41 and the refereeing helped me to play it on a continuous basis. Because when you're 33 or 34 and you stop training in October and you try and come back in February or March, half the season is gone by the time you're fit. I got sent off in my playing career but I always felt I had an obligation to lead from the front and set good examples. I was a physical player though. I wasn't weak at coming forward and I'd be at you in the tackle but I'd be very aware of my responsibilities.

The big advantage of playing and refereeing is understanding people. It's very easy to talk to somebody as a referee when you've been in their position before. I was there for 34 or 35 years doing what they do and now I'm just controlling what they do. So I understand the frustrations of players and the different mentalities that are on the field because I played on a lot of different teams, with a lot of different characters and a lot of different emotions.

You know reasonably well after a game whether you've done the business. The next three or four days, your adrenaline is pumping and you're feeling good and you can't wait for the next game to come around.

Then you can go through a phase where you're not refereeing particularly well. If you have a bad game, particularly if you get a championship game wrong, it's big news and nobody forgets you. If you look at TV highlights that night and you've made one or two wrong decisions, you feel sick and you just want to hide away for a couple of weeks until it all blows over. But then you get your next game and on you go.

I still love the challenge of refereeing two teams of 15 against 15 and keeping the fitness levels right.

That motivates me - I've got to be the right weight come the second or third week in January to make sure I'm ready for the National League and the new rules that's going to come with it.

The reason you want to stay in shape is to referee. One thing drives another on and I'm looking forward to next season already.

I don't know when I'll lose that drive but I'm only doing two or three more years maximum at intercounty level. I'll definitely be gone before I'm 50.

Refereeing has taken me all over the world.

I was in Hong Kong, I was in Australia for two tours, all over Europe and in America and there's no doubt that I enjoy that part of it as well.

But the thought of refereeing Tyrone and Armagh or Meath and Dublin in the first round of the championship in Croke Park in May or June, with all fires burning - there's no better place to be.

There's just a good feeling about walking out into Croke Park with 80,000 people in it, even as a referee.