Albeit a day late, GROGS celebrated International Women’s Day in fine style in the company of Scotland’s foremost female referee, Hollie Davidson. Hollie delighted the audience with a gentle account of her story from being a sports mad youngster to becoming the SRU’s first full time professional women’s referee. Her first love was football which she was obviously good at as she was picked to play for an under 17 ladies team in Deeside, aged 11! Introduced to rugby at school, it quickly became her passion. Football’s loss was rugby’s gain. A Scotland v Wales international at Murrayfield sealed the passion and she was hooked! Her University experience was not unfamiliar to some GROGs - a lot of drink and a lot of rugby which she enjoyed, playing at scrum half, but, unfortunately, the injury gods didn’t smile on her and her promising career was cut short by a series of shoulder injuries. Hollie was refreshingly honest in describing how her disappointment with this setback outweighed her determination to “get back on the horse”. Refereeing called to her when she watched other matches and thought she could do better than some of the performances she witnessed. Deciding to put her money where her mouth was, she joined the new SRU course for women referees and the rest is, as they say, history. Her crossroads decision was whether to stay in a secure banking job or follow her heart and progress in rugby. As the GROGS would never have invited her to speak if she had stayed in banking, we were delighted that she made the ‘right’ decision. In listening to Hollie, one word would quickly come to mind - modesty. She gave luck a lot of credit for the success in her career but, when she reeled off her appointments for the coming year, it was obvious that luck is a minimal factor in her success. Hopefully one day, she said, a woman will referee a men’s international match. Meantime, Hollie’s target is to be a good referee and not just a good female referee. Knowledgeable questions were asked which she answered equally knowledgeably and sensibly. Chairman, Brian Rigby, thanked her and presented her with a bottle of GROGS whisky, expressing his relief at her confession to the drinking experience in her time at University.