The 58-year-old who now lives and works in Townsville, was back in Launceston as referee at the 2017 Australasian under-17 badminton championships played at Elphin Sports Centre.

“I became an umpire nearly 40 years ago and went up through the ranks and made it to the top of the international level and have been all over the world umpiring including two Commonwealth Games, two Olympics and three world championships and two junior worlds,” Cocker said. “I am an Oceania Federation level referee and I have umpired all levels of national carnivals all over Australia and more recently have been into event management and have been event director of operations at the Australian Open for the past six years and I’m going to the Gold coast in May to do that at the Sudirman Cup which is the world mixed teams championships.”

Cocker was the first Tasmanian to reach an international certificated level in umpiring and said he had enjoyed his involvement – umpiring two bronze medal matches at the Beijing Olympics a highlight.

“I got into umpiring because I was never going to make it as a player and I enjoyed the sport and doing the official side was some way of putting something back in and I’ll still keep doing it while I enjoy it.

“I got an SOS from Badminton Australia about a month ago to see if I could referee at these championships and it was good to come home and help out.”