Frans Muller - loyal rugby man
Muller was a man of the South Western Districts who moved to Port Elizabeth and the Eastern Province. He played rugby for the Olympics Club in Port Elizabeth as a scrumhalf or a centre and played for Eastern Province Under-20, till injury struck and he took up refereeing. A determined and thoughtful man with a good feel for the game, fully aware of the referee environment, he was bound to do well at refereeing. And he had Jimmy Smith-Belton, the other great referee in the Eastern Province at the time to keep him determined and ambitious. He went to the top in the difficult art of refereeing, becoming South Africa's 41st Test referee.
Muller won the Eastern Province Referees' prestige trophy, awarded for the referee who showed the most progress and promise in his first year of refereeing. After he stopped refereeing he became a life member of SA Referees.
Muller had a long and glorious career as a top referee. He was just breaking into top refereeing when Quintus van Rooyen wrote in the SA Rugby Annual on refereeing in 1978, the year Muller went to Craven Week in icy Middelburg (Mpumalanga): "Just behind him [Steve Strydom] was young Fransie Muller (Eastern Province) who refereed the second meeting between Transvaal and Northern Transvaal brilliantly…. A lot will be heard of Muller."
It was in the 1970s that unattached referees were appointed to top provincial matches in South Africa. Before that the host union offered the visitors three of its referees for them to choose from.
Included in his 176 first class matches matches in South Africa, Muller was twice appointed to Lion Cup Finals – in 1985 and again in 1988 when injury forced him to leave the field to be replaced by Gerrit Coetzer.
His Test career started in 1976 when he refereed the match between the SA Rugby Football Federation and the SA African Rugby Board. Then came the Jaguars in 1982 – a team chose from South American countries, mostly from Argentina, as a means of getting round the boycott of South African rugby. There were two Tests between the Springboks and the Jaguars in 1982. Steven Strydom refereed the first one which the Springboks won handsomely. Muller refereed the second in Bloemfontein when the Jaguars, spearheaded by Hugo Porta turned the tables and won 21-13 when Porta scored all 21 points. The next South African referee to referee a Test involving the Springboks was Jonathan Kaplan in 2011 when they played Namibia at Newlands. In 1984 Muller was the referee when England played the SA Rugby Association in East London.
In 1985 Strydom became the first South African referee to referee a Five Nations match. The next was Fransie Muller in 1988 when he refereed two matches – Scotland vs France and France vs Ireland.
During the 1991 season Muller retired from refereeing. He served on the Referees' Society committee from the 1970s as a committee member, the secretary, the appointments coordinator, the vice-chairman and treasurer and from 2000 as chairman and treasurer of the Society in succession to Smith-Belton, a post he held till 2014. During his time as chairman he continued to help with the assessing of referees and in 2003 was chosen by the International Rugby Board (now World Rugby) as an assessor at the Rugby World Cup in Australia.
Fransie Muller was a loyal man – loyal to his union, his church and his family. For years and years he ran the finances of the NG Kerk in Adcockvale and was actually on his way to deposit money for church staff when he dropped dead, this after he had worked on the books at home the night before.
His heart had troubled him for over 25 years. Twice he had bypass operations and also had a pacemaker inserted. after a triple bypass late in his refereeing career, he recovered from the operation and went back to refereeing Currie Cup rugby.
Muller had a great collection of memorabilia which included his whole outfit for his first Test and a match ball from each of sundry big matches. He enjoyed having visitors to his collection.
Muller worked for years in civil administration before retiring at the compulsory age of 63 from the Nelson Mandela Municipality.
Frans Muller was born in George on 4 February 1940. He went to Hoërskool Outeniqua before heading to Port Elizabeth. He died in Port Elizabeth on Friday, 25 February 2016. He is survived by Stephanie, his wife of 41 years, son Gerald and daughter Shoneé and three granddaughters. The funeral was at the NG Kerk in Adcockvale at 11.00 on 2 March 2016. The tribute was given by ds Marius Cornelissen, a former rugby referee who is the father Muller's son-in-law, .
