he was learning to walk again<\/a> after a rare condition left him paralysed from the waist down.<\/p>\nBorn in Jamaica, he moved to Sheffield as a child and grew up in the Wybourn area of the city.<\/p>\n
He started refereeing in local football in 1979 before making history in 1997 when he oversaw the top-flight match between Derby County and Wimbledon.<\/p>\n
“Incredibly sad news about the passing of Uriah Rennie. A Black pioneering referee and leader in the game,” said Leon Mann, co-founder of the Football Black List.<\/p>\n
“We owe so much to those who push open the doors. Uriah should never, ever be forgotten.<\/p>\n
“Thoughts and prayers with Uriah’s family and close friends.”<\/p>\n
Rennie had been a magistrate in Sheffield since 1996 and campaigned on issues including improving equality and inclusion in sport, mental health and tackling deprivation.<\/p>\n
He had a master’s degree in business administration and law and, in November 2023, was awarded an honorary doctorate by Sheffield Hallam University for his distinguished contributions to sport and his work with South Yorkshire communities.<\/p>\n
In May, Rennie was installed as the new chancellor<\/a> of the university.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Uriah Rennie, the Premier League’s first black referee, has died aged 65. Rennie officiated more than 300 games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-169491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114651845808099560","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}