Wendy Toms

Wendy Toms took up refereeing in 1985 when she was living in Cyprus, where her husband was serving with the Royal Air Force. She had played football back in Britain, as a goalkeeper with Bournemouth ladies, and once represented England Youth in a 5-a-side tournament. As there was no opportunity to play in Cyprus, her husband enrolled her on a referee’s course, and that would turn out to be the key to what would be an innovative career as a football official for Toms.

Upon her return to England, to live in Poole, Toms registered with the Dorset FA and progressed through the ranks from a Grade Three to Grade One referee and went from local Sunday League football to the semi-professional Wessex League, and then on to the Football Conference, and ultimately the Football League.

A Bournemouth warehouse manager by profession, Toms was the first female to become a reserve official (now the “fourth” official) in a Football League game for the Bournemouth versus Reading match on 12 March 1991. The referee for that game was international and Olympic referee Philip Don.

In April 1994 Toms became first woman in the 106-year history of the Football League to be appointed to the linesman’s (now known as assistant referee) list and, on 20 August that year, she ran the line in the Torquay United versus Carlisle United match to make history as the first woman to officiate in a Football League game in England.

Having been appointed to the FA Premiership (now Premier League) assistant referees list on 30 May 1997, her finest moment came at Wembley Stadium in 2000 when she was one of the assistant referees for the Leicester City versus Tranmere Rovers Football League Cup final. The previous year she had made history when she took charge of the National Conference Game (one tier below the Football League) between Kidderminster Harriers and Nuneaton Borough. It was also the first senior match at that level of the English game in which all match officials were women.

Toms was on the FIFA list of officials from 2000-05, and was selected to attend the 2000 Sydney Olympics, being involved in two group games. She refereed the match between Germany and Sweden, and was the fourth official in the USA-Nigeria game. Also, internationally, Toms took charge of the UEFA Women’s Cup quarter-final first leg between Brøndby IF (Denmark) and Gomrukçu Baku (Azerbaijan) in 2003. She had refereed two games at the 2001 UEFA Women’s Championship, including the semi-final clash between Germany and Norway and four years later, when the tournament was held in England, she refereed the France versus Italy game at Deepdale, Preston.