Seeing Red

Referees have football's poisoned chalice. Obviously the game needs refereeing and yet very few people want to do it. So the likes of Graham Poll, who get involved at a young age at grassroots level, deserve enormous credit and the thanks of all us who care about the game of football. Perhaps – no disrespect, Graham! – they are not the greatest footballers but they want to be involved in football because they love the game, and that is a very good thing.

Then, if they work their way up to professional level and the very serious stuff, they become the focus of an enormous amount of scrutiny. It is not just me, and all the other managers, watching their every move and being very demanding. It is not just the players and the fans who are focused on everything they do. It is, of course, all the television cameras. If a referee makes the smallest mistake, a television analyst will tell the world, ‘That mistake cost this team a goal.' It is incredibly difficult to have the confidence to make decisions in those circumstances. Big brother is watching you all the time.

That is why, when the discussions were going on about referees becoming full-time professionals a few years ago, I was against the move. At a meeting in London about the subject I said that it didn't matter how much referees were paid and how often they trained, some of them would still not be able to make decisions. I said that it would not matter if we paid referees £300,000 a week and got them training every day; some of them would still not be able to make decisions.

I think I have been proved right about that. Some of our professional referees still cannot make decisions. That is a human characteristic which you will find in every walk of life. It is not confined to refereeing. You can either make a decision or you can't and I have worked with people, and known people, who just cannot.

My summary of Graham Poll is quite simple. He can make decisions. Without question, in my time in England, he has been the referee who has been easily the best decision-maker of all. He has been able to deport himself throughout his whole career with a confidence, and with expression, which has never been diluted by the presence of dozens of TV cameras watching him.

That view is supported by sound evidence, because it is not just me who thinks Graham has been a good decision-maker. That is what many others have said. That praise has enabled him to go into games with a certain confidence, but he had to have the gift for decision-making in the first place and had to earn the praise that came his way.

I am not saying that he gave decisions I approved of, or which favoured my club. He has taken some of our big games, and he has been hopeless in some of them! But now, as Graham is retiring, I am not assessing his career on the
basis of some decision he made ten years ago or something like that. I am appraising him on the basis of the whole career and, as I say, he was never afraid to make decisions. When, as a manager, you take your team to places like Arsenal or Chelsea or Liverpool for really big games, you want a strong referee and that is why, for those huge fixtures, I was generally pleased to see the referee's name listed as ‘Graham Poll'.

The other aspect of his character which struck me, as well as his ability and readiness to make decisions, was that he smiled when he refereed. I noted that the very first time he refereed a Manchester United game – against Queens Park Rangers in 1994. I remember that, in my match report to the authorities about the referee, I wrote that Graham was the first referee I had seen since arriving in England who I thought had a chance of being very good. I made that comment because I had seen him smiling.

With some referees, if they smile you get worried because you think they are about to do something to hurt you! But lots of them are too uptight to smile at all during the ninety minutes. Over the years, I came to know that when Graham smiled during a game, it meant he was relaxed and enjoying himself and enjoying the game. He was delighted to be on the pitch with great players and able to express his individuality.

I get asked to talk about a lot of people in football. I get approached to do a lot of forewords to books but I turn down many of these. I have to assess whether the person concerned has made a genuine contribution to football, and I am happy to introduce Graham's book because he has passed that test in my mind. He has, indeed, made a real contribution to football with his ability and his personality.

If he is retiring because of any disillusionment, I am sorry about that, but I know he has not fallen out of love with football itself. In what proved to be his last season he was still able to smile – a genuine, warm smile – during games. He is right to get out before he stops smiling.

I stood in the centre-circle of the almost empty stadium in Stuttgart, fearful and very tearful. It was an hour and a quarter after the game and I craved a private moment at the scene of my public humiliation. The only place where I could be sure of being alone was out there on the pitch, where, in one sense, a referee is always alone.

The Gottlieb-Daimler Stadion had been revamped for the World Cup. It held 52,000 spectators and boasted the two biggest video screens in Europe, apparently. Cleaners were threading their way along the rows of seats and there were some lights on desks high up in one stand where journalists were still working on their reports. They were writing about the shocking mistake I had made but were probably too preoccupied to look at the forlorn figure in the middle of the pitch.

I was certainly preoccupied. I was in turmoil.

It was Thursday, 22 June 2006, the day I went from being the bloke who had a good chance of refereeing the World Cup Final to the clown who would always be remembered for a cock-up.

Billions of people around the world know that a football referee shows a player a yellow card when he cautions him. If he has to caution him a second time, and has to show him a second yellow card, then he must also show him a red card and send him off. Two yellows equal a red – simple. Most of those billions around the planet also know that I got it wrong. Mistakenly, unforgivably, I cautioned Croatia defender Josip Simunic three times, and showed him three yellow cards, before producing the red.

As I looked up, unseeingly, into the nearly deserted stands, and through the halo of the roof into the night sky of Germany, I thought about the magnitude of my mistake. Its implications kept going around in my head. I was too upset to think about the future but I did conclude that my twenty-six-year career was ending there and then. I worked out later that the game in Stuttgart was my 1,500th match, exactly. At that moment, I assumed it would be my last.

I became aware that there were other people out on the pitch area and saw that assistant referee Glenn Turner was standing, appropriately enough, by the touchline. I walked over and he gave me a hug. Neither of us said anything. Neither of us could. Finally, I left the pitch to make my way to the official car which would take me back to the hotel. But I took one last, lingering look back at the stands, the roof, the lights and the scoreboards. I was convinced I would never referee in a top stadium again.

There were even lower ebbs to come. In the days that immediately followed, I was in a dark, black cave. And for a long time afterwards there were bleak moments when the harrowing events of that night in Stuttgart came back to overwhelm me. I don't suppose I shall ever stop having nights when I lose sleep. I have a life sentence of asking myself, ‘Why?'

But I did not let my career end there. I did not want to be defined by Stuttgart. It is only part of my story.

Yet I know that other people do define me by Stuttgart and the biggest mistake I made. It became clear, in the season that followed, that the wound my career suffered that night was, indeed, mortal. So we shall return to the Gottlieb-Daimler Stadion in this account, just as I return there in my mind all too often. And I shall explain what happened – even though I cannot explain why.

But first I want to tell you how, in the season that followed the 2006 World Cup, some very good folk, like David Beckham, tried to heal that wound. I also need to tell you how others, like John Terry, made the pain impossible to ignore.

The first telephone call I received when I arrived home from the World Cup was from David Beckham.

My wife, Julia, picked me up from Heathrow airport on her own, without our three children. Neither of us wanted pictures of the kids in the newspapers. She thought, as well, that I would need a bit of time alone with her, a bit of support, before being strong in front of our two daughters and our son.

Then, about an hour after I had arrived back, at last, to my home in Tring, my mobile rang. I did not want to talk to anyone but I answered it and a voice said, ‘Graham? It's David. David Beckham. Becks.'

I thought it was a joker or a hoaxer. But he said, ‘Remember I got that shirt for your daughter, Gemma?'

So I knew it was him. It was the England captain. He was in a hotel in Gelsenkirchen and the next day he was going to lead his country in a World Cup quarter-final. Yet he had taken time to telephone me. I had already received one message of support from him. The England squad had watched my own
World Cup implode and several had sent messages to me via another referee who visited their base camp. I was told that Beckham, the captain, had made a special point of saying, ‘Tell him to keep his chin up.'

Now Beckham was on the telephone; a man and a father who could empathize with me and who wanted to reach out in friendship to me and my family. He knew all about making a mistake at a World Cup – and more than anyone about being vilified for it. People in England had hanged effigies of Beckham after he was sent off in 1998 against Argentina.

I had played a small part in helping him after 1998, by encouraging him during the Community Shield match which began the next season. He was only twenty-three then. Now, in 2006, Beckham was such a global mega-celebrity that when he phoned me, I was as excited as a star-struck kid.

I had been there, done that and got all the refereeing shirts. I was blasé about celebs. And at that moment, I didn't care about much at all, because I was so crushed by Stuttgart. Yet when Beckham phoned I fumbled with the buttons, trying to put the mobile on ‘speaker' so that Julia could hear. I did not manage to find the right buttons. In any case, what the England captain said was a personal message for me.

He told me not to let it get me down. He told me it would pass. He asked if there was anything he could do.

What a man.

Friends and family had helped me when I was in the black cave of my abject despair in Germany. Thinking about the precious people in my life had provided the first pin-pricks of light. Now, back in England, Beckham's humanity gave me real inspiration.

A lot of good people also helped persuade me to keep going. The saying is that ‘you learn who your friends are' and that is true. But you also learn that some people you barely know are decent as well. I remember collecting my son, Harry, from school one day in the season that followed the World Cup, when Burnley manager Steve Cotterill telephoned. He said, ‘I hear you're thinking about packing it in, Pollie. Don't do it.' I had only refereed Cotterill's team once and yet he had made the effort to find my number and contact me. Gestures like that meant a lot, and so did the support of Keith Hackett, the man in charge of England's professional referees, who said to me, pointedly, ‘Tell me why you should give up?'

So I kept going and the first match I refereed after the World Cup was a friendly between Tring Athletic and Bedmond Social. I had promised my local club that I would do it and I did not want to let them down. There were only about fifty spectators and I could not help thinking, as I warmed up, ‘This is my 1501st match. If things had gone differently, match number 1501 might have been the World Cup Final.'

During the game, one of the players hacked somebody down but, because it was a friendly, I didn't book him. I said, ‘I'll tell you what, mate – in the season that would have been a yellow.'

He replied, ‘And two more and I would have been off.'

It was the first joke made to my face about Stuttgart. I managed a wan smile. I felt no antagonism at all towards a player but, in that moment, I saw a future of endless similar jokes.

The next day I refereed another friendly – between Chelsea and Celtic at Stamford Bridge. Uriah Rennie became
unavailable and they asked me. It went well enough and on the Friday I went to Chelsea's training ground to talk to the players about new interpretations of the Laws. José Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, had asked for me. That too, went very well. Everything was sweet.

But then came the first competitive match: Saturday, 12 August 2006 – Football League, Colchester United versus Barnsley. I could not face it.

The plan was to ease me back in. The Football League season kicked off before the Premiership and so it seemed a good idea for me to start at Layer Road, Colchester. But I was not even ready for that. I pulled over and sat in the car in a lay-by on the A12, with the radio off, alone with my thoughts. They were all negative thoughts. For the first time, in a career that had taken me from Division Five of the North Herts League to two World Cups, I did not think I could fulfil an appointment.

But of course I had to and of course I did.

Colchester had been promoted to the top division of the Football League for the first time in their history. Their ground held only 6,000 and there were just 4,249 present for their second home game of the season, the Barnsley match. Yet I knew there would be a big media presence.

Peter Drury of ITV had already telephoned me to ask if I would do a pre-match interview with Robbie Earle. Peter is a good friend and I had admired Robbie when he was a player and had grown to like him as a man. But I declined the invitation to talk to the nation. I had made up my mind that an interview I had given in Germany would be my last public word for a year at least.

An ITV crew was lying in wait as I got to the ground and a camera was trained on me for every step of my walk from
the car to the dressing room. Robbie Earle asked for ‘just one comment on the record' but I said ‘No' again. Later I ambled out into the middle for the pitch inspection, faking total confidence. The camera followed me again.

In the press box, at the modest occasion of a Football League game, were some big-name, big-hitting newspaper writers: the columnists and opinion-formers. Most of them had formed their own opinion about me years before. They thought I hogged the limelight. But I really did not want any publicity from them, particularly on that day.

When I went out to warm-up I braced myself. At best, I expected merciless mickey-taking from spectators. At worst, I feared scorn and derision. What I received was applause and some encouraging remarks from spectators. I have never been more delighted about the English trait of rallying round someone who has suffered. As the local football paper,
The
Green Un
, remarked, ‘Rarely has a referee been so popular.'

Of course there was banter. In one area of one stand, a group of supporters had pieces of yellow card with the number three written on them by the same pen and in the same handwriting. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble. Perhaps it was a coincidence that an ITV camera was stationed in that part of the ground. Perhaps.

The game kicked off. Eventually and inevitably I had to take a player's name. Out came my yellow card and I heard the chant that was to provide backing music for my season: ‘
Two more … he only needs two more
.'

That time the joke brought a genuine smile to my face and I thought, ‘You can cope with this, Pollie.'

So I was up and running. Now what I hoped for was six months of … nothing. No headlines and no controversy. I wanted the only reference to me to be the one at the bottom
of reports, under the teams, where it said, ‘Referee: G. Poll (Herts)'.

A week after the Colchester game, the Premiership season kicked off and I took charge of Arsenal's first match at the stunning new Emirates Stadium, against Aston Villa. It passed without incident and I was less of a story for the media than I had been the week before.

Fulham's match against Sheffield United at Craven Cottage was my 300th Premier League fixture, and the next time the Select Group of referees gathered together, there was a little presentation to mark what was a significant milestone. However, in my frail state of mind, I took it as a sign that my race was almost run. I knew I would not reach 400. I wasn't even sure of reaching 350. So instead of celebrating passing the 300 mark, I just thought, ‘That is your last milestone, Pollie.'

The matches kept coming and I was successfully avoiding headlines. I refereed the Merseyside derby at Goodison, which Everton won 3–0. I took charge when Arsenal won 1–0 at Old Trafford. I was back at Old Trafford when Manchester United beat Liverpool 2–0. They all went well; high-profile matches with a low-profile Pollie. Excellent.

I had a European Champions League match involving Real Madrid. Beckham made a point of coming to see me in my dressing room and, again, wishing me well. More encouragement. More positive thoughts.

I took charge of Chelsea's home game against Aston Villa and should have sent off Chelsea's Claude Makelele just before the end. But the referee's assessor did not dock me any points for it. All was going swimmingly.

I was scheduled to referee Tottenham versus Chelsea. It was a Sunday afternoon game, which would be televised live,
on 5 November. Inevitably, Sky TV's pre-publicity asked, ‘Will there be fireworks on Bonfire Day?' They obviously hoped the answer would be ‘Yes'. I was desperate for a ‘No'. Sky got their wish.