he was a top ref as long as you were a top high profile team. nothing can ever be proved but it certainly seemed that they didn,t want certain teams in finals and giving certain referees in charge of games helped them to do this. ellery always said that he wanted to be a referee from his early teens. think that says it all about the bloke really. met many ex league refs and they usually say they took up the whistle as they were poor footballers or injury curtailed a football career.