Once described as the “most fit” referee of world football by former managers of the Professional match matches Limited (PGMOL), Keith Hackett, Rennie had to abandon his first high flight match when the spotlights failed in Pride Park.
It was added to the international list of FIFA in 2000 and to the limited group of professional pgmol referees the following year.
Addressing BBC Sport in 2023, the former striker of Arsenal and England Ian Wright said: “I always found that when I played with him (as an arbitrator), there was no real interaction.
“With some of the other referees, you might speak to them, have a little joke. And I think the pressure it would probably have been – not to have this kind of interaction with other black players – must have been really intense, simply because of what people could say.”
Addressing BBC Radio 5 Live, Hackett said: “He had the stature and presence on the playing field and he was completely a gentleman. He was calm but effective in what he did.
“He was superbly in good shape. He had a black belt in one of the martial arts and I often watched him sprinter, make a decision, the players who watched around him trying to try the referee and he would hit them on the shoulder and said” look, I am there, I saw him “and he would have a smile.
“He was a great communicator but spoke quietly, almost never lost his cool in any situation and understood the game very well.”
But after Rennie’s retirement in 2008, it took 15 years to another black referee to take charge of a Premier League match, when Sam Allison was appointed to Sheffield United against Luton Town in December 2023.
Earlier that year, the football association had planned plans to increase the diversity of match officials through the football pyramid and wishes an increase of 1,000 women referees and 1,000 black or Asian referees at all levels by 2023.
When this strategy was announced, only 3% of professional football officials were of black or Asian ethnic origin.