Matt Eastley

16th Jan 2026

RUGBY’S FATHER FIGURE

I recently stumbled across this interesting piece from the Burnley Express from 1986 featuring St Mary’s very own Fr Tom Burns, who later became the Bishop of Minervia.
It talks about Tom’s rugby refereeing career which I hadn’t realised had been quite so impressive.
Tom did tell me about his refereeing during many thoroughly enjoyable email exchanges I had with him while researching ‘We Did Our Homework On The Bus,’ but was sufficiently modest not to mention that he reached a high standard of club rugby.
Tom was a hugely popular figure at St Mary’s, where he taught between 1974 and 1978, an inspirational form master and teacher of A-Level economics.
He was also greatly appreciated by rugby masters Rod Turner and Roy White.
I knew Tom had grown up in Burnley (the same town as my mother) after being born in Belfast in 1944 and it was interesting to read he was a supporter of Burnley FC, as was my grandfather.
Ironically enough, I found this article while searching for references to Fr Philip Graystone, St Mary’s headmaster between 1967 and 1981. Fr Graystone had been Tom’s headmaster when he attended St Mary’s Blackburn in the 1950s before spending tow years in the sixth form at Winslade School in Exeter from where he applied to join the Society of Mary and began his studies for the Priesthood at the Marist Monastery in Paignton, Devon.
Ordained in 1971, he obtained an Honours Degree in Divinity from London University, as well as a Diploma in Business Studies. After spending two years in the Marist parish at Whitechapel in the East End of London, he came south to Sidcup where he spent four years before returning to Blackburn.
During this time he became a graduate of the Open University, specialising in Economics and Social Studies.
It seems that Tom started refereeing immediately after leaving Sidcup (and I can still recall the day he left) and eight years later was refereeing the likes of top North West rugby clubs like Sale, Liverpool and Preston Grasshoppers. He also qualified as a cricket umpire.
In 1986 Tom was commissioned as a full-time Chaplain in the Royal Navy. After training at HMS RALEIGH and Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth, he served as a Chaplain in HMS DRAKE and Devonport Naval Base. From there he went to sea with the ships of the first Flotilla (to the Falklands, the Gulf and the Caribbean) and then joined the Chaplaincy Team in Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth. Leaving the Navy in 1992, he took up an appointment as Bursar General at the Marist Fathers’ Headquarters in Rome but subsequently re-entered the Royal Navy in January 1994.

In May 1998 he was promoted and appointed Monsignor and Principal Roman Catholic Chaplain (Naval). He was appointed Queen’s Honorary Chaplain on 29 May 1998.
Tom became Bishop of the Forces on 18 June 2002. He was then fully engaged in official and pastoral visits to Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force units and establishments throughout the UK and overseas, including Iraq in Holy week 2005.
In 2005, at the request of the Bishops, he set up the St Luke’s Centre, in Manchester, for the support of clergy and religious (women and men).
Tom was installed as Bishop of Menevia on 1 December 2008, a role he fulfilled for eleven years.
What a fine and talented man, Tom was, and is.