A rugby referee ended a Braintree match ten minutes early after he was hit by a snowball.

The Black and Ambers game went ahead despite heavy snow on the Beckers Green Road pitch, but ended in controversy.

To the players' puzzlement, the match referee blew for time just moments after Josh Winwood had scored Braintree's third and decisive try.

But it later transpired that the referee drew a close to the game when a missile - thought to be a large frozen snowball -was thrown at him.

Braintree's chairman of selectors Jeff Lewis said: "Nobody could understand why the ref ended the game so early but he later claimed someone had thrown a snowball at him after we scored our third try.

"I've never known anything like it. If anything we lost out because although the result stands we felt we could have gone on to score a few more tries because Beccles heads had gone down."

Published Wednesday, February 5, 2003