Local football referees will provide a guard of honour at the funeral of police Sergeant Gregory Grimes at the Hamilton Cathedral today.

Grimes, a former referee and long-time football administrator, died last Thursday after falling ill the day before on his way to work.

His death shocked the local football community, which he served as a match commissioner as well as a member of the referees committee.

Crenstant Williams, the chairman of the Bermuda Football Association’s referees committee, was with Grimes last Tuesday evening at a referees’ committee meeting. He is still coming to terms with the death of Grimes.

“Everybody is stunned, I was with him on the Tuesday night and watched him get in his car,” Williams said. “We were discussing referee committee stuff, like we normally do.

“He went to work the next morning and was outside his job before he was rushed to hospital. The next morning he was pronounced dead.

“He’s going to be a huge, huge miss, I can’t think of anybody on my committee to replace him. He was my deputy chairman for referees this year. I’m totally lost and right now I’m still trying to process the whole thing.

“We just scheduled another Fifa course for the last week of April and he was supposed to be a part of that. We conducted a recent referee assessor’s course to get new assessors to help out this season. He was also active with the youth referees.”

Grimes stepped down as the BFA second vice-president last year after serving for 30 years on the executive. He also served as a referee, referee instructor, committee chairman and head of delegation.

Although he resigned from the vice-presidency, Grimes continued to work as a referee instructor, committee member and match commissioner. He was awarded a citation at this year’s annual Government Sports Awards for his service to football. Grimes chaired numerous standing committees, served on various committees as well as head of delegation on many international trips and represented Bermuda at the Caribbean Football Union, Concacaf and Fifa congresses around the world.

“On my first Fifa congress in 2015 in Zurich I went with Mr Grimes,” Williams added. “No one can fill his shoes. This has caught everyone by surprise.”

The referees association has been struggling with numbers this season but several new officials have been recruited. Martin Wyer has returned while Anthony Mouchette recently officiated a match after quitting as a referee.

“If we’re desperately short he will come out and help,” Williams said of Mouchette. “It’s more tricky over the Christmas break when people make plans to go away. We’re surviving for now and doing the best we can. We’ll have another youth referees drive next month.”