Seeing Red (14 page)

The switch to full-time professionalism meant that referees got more training, more feedback and more analysis. Then again, they got more stick.

Philip Don, who did so much to convince English football that it needed professional referees, knew only too well how difficult it had been to be a top official while holding down a ‘day job'. He was a leading referee whose ability was rewarded when he took charge of the FA Cup Final in 1992, the European Champions League Final in 1994 (when Milan thrashed Barcelona 4–0 in Athens) and two games in the 1994 World Cup, including a quarter-final. But he retired prematurely so as not to damage his other career, as a head-teacher. Then when the Premier League chairmen eventually voted to have professional refs, there was a job too for Philip – as our manager.

Twenty-four refs were called to London for a meeting and offered our new, professional contracts. We were like kids in a sweet shop, looking around at each other and grinning. We had all started in parks football, refereeing for a hobby, and none of us had ever imagined that our hobby would become our job. I felt particularly well-prepared for my new life as a pro because, the previous summer, I had been to my first
major tournament, Euro 2000. For five weeks I had lived like a full-time ref.

I was told I was going to Euro 2000 at a UEFA course in Malta, and the moment had its element of farce. Scottish referee Hugh Dallas and three Englishmen – me, Graham Barber and Paul Durkin – were the Brits with a chance of being selected and all four of us were called to see Ken Ridden, the Football Association's representative on UEFA's referees committee. Ridden said, ‘We have four referees in the room. Two will be happy and two won't be. Graham and Hugh – you're going. Graham and Paul – unfortunately you've not been so lucky.'

I said, ‘Ken – can you tell us which Graham please?'

He explained that I was the Graham who was going. Barbs was not, and we both knew that, at forty-one, he would probably not get another opportunity. Paul Durkin had refereed at the 1998 World Cup. My selection for Euro 2000 ahead of him effectively meant that he was no longer England's top referee. Yet, to his immense credit, Durks was the first to shake my hand, wishing me all the best. Barbs and I went back to the room we were sharing but he left again immediately to let me have some privacy when I telephoned Julia. When he returned a little later, the first thing I saw was his genuine and generous smile. The second thing I spotted was that he had bought a bottle of champagne for me. He is a class act.

I cannot tell you anything else about that UEFA course in Malta because I was focused completely on that decision about Euro 2000. I had gone from parks football, through the leagues to the top competitions in England. I had become an international referee. Within two years I had been elevated again to the group of the top fifty refs in Europe.
Now, with selection for Euro 2000, I could consider myself among the top dozen or so.

Euro 2000, or ‘The 2000 UEFA European Championship', was co-hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands. The chosen few referees went out for a course at Easter and stayed at the modern hotel just outside Brussels which was to be our base for the tournament that summer. I can remember boarding the Eurostar train to travel to that course and feeling so proud.

Then, after returning from that trip, I was told I was going to referee the European Champions League semi-final second leg between Bayern Munich and Real Madrid and my mind went to all those nights when my mum had got me back up out of bed to watch great European games on
Sports
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night with Coleman
. Bayern and Real Madrid – two of the biggest clubs in world football. Incredible. The game was at the Olympic Stadium and I remember being taken up to the top of the BMW tower which literally overlooks the entire Olympic park. Way below, in the stadium, groundstaff were giving the pitch its final cut. I was too far away too see the staff or their mowers, only the changing geometric pattern on the turf as they went about their job methodically and with precision. It is something that has stuck in my mind – and so has the atmosphere at the game, which was like nothing I had ever experienced. Bayern won 2–1 but Real went through on away goals.

That was on 9 May. Twelve days later I refereed the FA Cup Final, and despite the nastiness of the false allegation about my supporting Chelsea, it was a memorable month in an unforgettable season. When the time came to travel to Euro 2000 – this time by plane instead of train – my excitement far outweighed any apprehension.

There were thirteen referees at our base outside Brussels – twelve Europeans and Egypt's Gamal El-Ghandour who had been invited as a guest referee. I was very much the rookie and knew I was there to learn. The others included the giants of European refereeing: Pierluigi Collina and Anders Frisk of course, plus men like Kim Milton Nielsen, Dick Jol and Urs Meier. I hope you can understand what it felt like to see the list and to see, included in it, the entry ‘Graham Poll, England'.

It was relaxed and friendly and hugely enjoyable. There was a tremendous sense of camaraderie – a shared sense of how long and hard we had all worked to get there.

My first appointment was as fourth official to Portugal's Vitor Manuel Perreira for Slovenia versus Yugoslavia, a game with plenty of political needle and some controversy. Then I was due to referee reigning world champions France versus the Czech Republic – and things started to go wrong before kick-off.

Phil Sharp, like me from Hertfordshire, and Eddie Foley of Northern Ireland were my assistants. Hugh Dallas was the fourth official. We attended the stadium in Bruges the day before the match to look around and on the morning of the tie we went back for a security briefing, at the end of which I took off my photo ID and went for lunch with friends and family. Julia and my parents were there, along with Graham and Wendy Barber, my brother-in-law Tony, Keith Hill (an ex-referee and a close friend) plus Phil Sharp's wife Debbie. They had all driven to Bruges.

We had a leisurely, relaxing lunch and I was unhurried and unflustered when I returned to my hotel. In my room, I opened my briefcase to take out my photo ID, which I would need for the match. It was not there.

I told myself not to panic and then immediately ignored the instruction. I knew I'd had the ID that morning, yet it was not in my briefcase, nor in any of my pockets. Phil Sharp knocked on the door to say we had to leave. I told him what had happened and he double-checked my case for me and came to the same conclusion: I'd lost it. The only explanation I could fashion was that I had put the ID in a bag of washing I had given to Julia.

We were now fifteen minutes behind schedule. In the car taking the match officials to the stadium, the referee's match observer, a Romanian, looked on with increasing incredulity as I telephoned Barbs on his mobile. He was with Julia and the others. We arranged for our two cars to meet on the way to the ground. Somehow, we managed to arrive at a set of traffic lights at the same time and, while the lights were red, I jumped from our car, ran to the other vehicle, threw open the boot and rummaged through my dirty washing. There was no sign of my ID.

In what was a wonderful example of both improvisation and Anglo-Scottish co-operation, Hugh Dallas found a spare length of the purple cord to which the IDs were attached. I put an empty loop of cord around my neck and tucked the front into my jacket, as if the pass was in the top pocket of my shirt. Then I breezed into the stadium and ambled passed the security checks with studied nonchalance.

International football is very different from club football. That might sound obvious, but the difference, although profound, is a subtle one. The pace is slower but the intensity is greater, for some reason. The match is the focal point of ardent national attention, of course, and the players certainly understand that. At Euro 96, for instance, it seemed like the whole of the country watched every England match, and
there was this collective will centred on the game. In the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when the home country played, it felt as if the entire nation was thronging the streets of every city and filling every fan park urging their kinsmen on.

I did not, however, find international matches as enjoyable as club games. Perhaps I was always aware of the magnitude of international matches and found it stifling. Certainly I refereed at my very best in fast-moving, high-tempo contests – and internationals were not like that. I think as well that in Bruges the business of the lost ID made my head in a mess – and probably occurred because it was already in a mess. I was inexperienced and covering my anxiety with my usual bravado.

But to understand why things went awry in the France–Czech Republic game, you need to know about a UEFA instruction for the tournament. The officials were all told that if there was a foul or handball close to the edge of a penalty area, the assistant referee should give a secret signal to indicate whether the incident was inside or outside the box. If he was sure it was inside, he should run briskly towards the corner flag. If he was certain it was outside, he should run sharply away from the corner flag. If the assistant's ‘signal' was ambiguous, the referee should not give a penalty. The thinking was that the referee should make his decision, whatever it was, without going to talk to the assistant. The decision would then look less debateable and there would be no risk of players mobbing the assistant.

That was the theory. But, not long after Thierry Henry had given France the lead, the French captain, Didier Deschamps, shoved Pavel Nedved to the ground as the Czech Republic player closed in on goal. It was a foul, but was it
inside the area? I looked across at assistant referee Eddie Foley, who ran a little way towards the corner flag but stopped and seemed to dither. I sensed uncertainty on his part.

What I should have done, according to UEFA, was give a free-kick outside the box. If it had proved the wrong decision – if the offence had been inside the area – I would have been absolved from blame because of the assistant's ambivalent ‘signal'. But I wanted to get the decision accurate, not to satisfy a UEFA directive. I also wanted to help my assistant, who looked like a rabbit in the headlights, so I ran over to him. He said, ‘In – definitely in.' I awarded a penalty. There were no serious protests from France. Karel Poborsky beat Fabian Barthez with the spot-kick.

However, when we came out for the second half, the France and Arsenal midfielder Patrick Vieira said to me, ‘Graham, you have a problem. The penalty was outside. We've seen it on television.' He was not being confrontational. He knew I had acted on the word of the assistant and he was sorry for me. Yet, because substitute Youri Djorkaeff struck another goal for France, they won 2–1 and so the penalty did not affect the outcome.

The penalty apart, the game went well and there were handshakes all round at the end, so I was fairly sanguine when I joined my family and friends for a meal in a fine restaurant in the centre of Bruges. While I was there, my sister Susan telephoned me from England. She told me that the ‘penalty' foul was inches outside the box. She had seen it on TV and wanted me to know in case I was asked about it. She was being supportive, but, although I kidded everyone that it didn't matter because it had not influenced the result, I knew it would matter.

I said goodbye to my family and friends that night, went back to my room and began to realize that, by ignoring the UEFA directive, I had probably guaranteed that I would be going home early from my first major tournament. Still, that night I found the ID – it had slipped down a pocket at the back of my brief case – so it wasn't all bad news.

On the following day there was a video debrief of the game. Eddie Foley took the heat off me by telling the UEFA referees committee, ‘I told Graham to award the penalty.' His error cost him his place in the top group of assistants. It was costly for me, too. The observer – who had seen my attempt to recover my ID from the dirty laundry in an adjacent vehicle – gave me a mark of 7.5 for the match. It was nowhere near good enough: I would be going home after the first round. I went to my room and sat there, devastated.

Later that night I shared a few beers with some colleagues and my mood continued to improve the following day when I was in the crowd for England's victory over Germany in Charleroi. And I was given one last fixture: Slovenia versus Norway in Arnhem. It proved to be an extraordinary game.

The score was 0–0 when the crowd and the two benches received the news that Spain were losing 3–2 to Yugoslavia. If the scores in both matches remained like that, then Norway would go through. Slovenia were happy with a draw as well, because they had lost both their previous group games. So for the final twenty minutes of my match, the teams knocked the ball about without much intent and nobody put in a serious tackle. At the final whistle, Norwegian players and officials partied on the pitch.

But, unknown to me as I relaxed in the officials' dressing room, seven minutes of added time were being played in
Bruges. And in that time, Gaizka Mendieta equalized for Spain with a penalty and then Alfonso Perez scored again. Spain had won 4–3. That meant Yugoslavia and Spain were in the second round; Norway had been edged into third place in the group.

When Norwegian delegates came into my dressing room to say ‘thank you' – and present me with a pewter cheese knife for which I was very, very grateful, honestly – I asked them why they looked miserable. They told me about the result from Bruges and said, ‘We're going home.'

I replied, ‘If it is any consolation, so am I.' I don't think it was.

Paul Durkin had told me that he was affected badly by learning he was going home from the 1998 World Cup. He told me to learn from his mistake if the situation arose for me. So I was determined to be courteous and professional. The next day, after training, Ken Ridden, the FA's man, was looking for me. I spotted him first and said, ‘Don't worry Ken, I know I am going home. I have already phoned Julia to tell her.' I watched the remainder of the tournament on television at home.