The NLP's editor in chief David Emery presents Ray Lewis, right, with the award
Former referee Ray Lewis has witnessed things that most football fans would struggle to imagine – and his efforts have now been recognised with The NLP Lifetime Achievement award.
The 75-year-old, from Great Bookham, collected his award at The National Game Awards after becoming a Football League official more than 50 years ago.
During his career he reached the dizzying heights of refereeing the first FA Cup semi-final to be held at Wembley and awarded the free-kick from which Paul Gascoigne scored one of the most memorable goals in the competition's history as eventual winners Tottenham Hotspur beat Arsenal.
However, Lewis was also the man in the middle for a game that will go down as one of the most catastrophic days in football as 96 people lost their lives when Liverpool faced Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough in 1989.
After serving one year in the Premier League in its inaugural 1992-93 season, Lewis retired aged 49 having spent 24 years as a Football League official.
Since his retirement, he has gone on to become the president of the Surrey County Football Association and chairs the FA's leagues committee.
“It is a great honour and I didn't expect it so it was a lovely surprise,” said Lewis, who is a lifelong Leatherhead supporter.
“To receive a national award form an organisation like The Non-League Paper is fantastic and there are a lot of people at this level of the sport who just do things for the love of it and it is a great way to say thank you very much to those people.
“I started out in football by founding a club called South Kingston when I was just 15 years old and I was even refereeing the team back then.
“I was told that I wasn't doing a bad job so I took a refereeing exam in 1962 and carried on doing it for the next 50 years.
“In my 24 years refereeing in the Football League there are two games in particular that stick out in my mind.
“The first was the 1991 FA Cup semi-final between Tottenham and Arsenal, which was the first ever to be played at Wembley.
“And the second was the 1989 semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest which was of course also the Hillsborough disaster.
“We didn't really understand the seriousness of it all at the time but those are the types of thing that stick in your mind for the rest of your life.”
