Geoff Hurst, the Hand of God and the Biggest Rows in World Football. Graham Poll

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СКАЧАТЬ MORE YES MEN

       FROM the year 2000, to reduce ‘Ye-es’ moments, FIFA imposed some additional, standardized instructions for assistant referees.

       If the ref signals for a foul near the penalty area and the assistant is sure it wasoutside the box, the assistant should take an exaggerated step towards the halfway line. If the assistant is certain the foul wasinside the area, he should run towards the corner flag.

       FIFA do not want referees going over to talk to assistants, because that would look as if the ref is unsure about the decision and the players would surround the officials to have their say.

       In my autobiography,Seeing Red, I recount an incident just like that in Euro 2000. I took charge of a match between the Czech Republic and France on 16 June in Bruges. Despite those careful, homogenized instructions on what to do about penalty decisions, I still went over to my assistant, Eddie Foley from Cork, to find out what had happened. We gave a penalty instead of a free-kick outside the area. We got the decision wrong. And UEFA were not happy that I had ignored the directive.

      LANGUAGE PROBLEM

      Dave Bryan was one of the best assistant referees I worked with, but he had his own ‘66 moment on 3 January 2004, when he signalled for a goal by Watford’s Heidar Helguson against Chelsea. The ball hit the bar and bounced down on—or, according to Dave, over—the line.

      He had his language difficulties when he was on foreign trips. On one occasion, at a match in Macedonia, the assessor was German and the officials were English. They included Dave, plus Mike Dean and Steve Dunn, who are big mates of mine. One of them asked the assessor his profession. He said, ‘I am ein doctair. I work with children. I am a paedi…paedi…’

      As he struggled for the English word paediatrician, Dave tried to help out. ‘Paedophile?’ he offered, unthinkingly. Steve and Mike fell off their chairs laughing.

      YELLOW CARE FOR ROB

       THE Mendes-Carroll goal (at Old Trafford on 4 January 2005) was such a blatantly wrong decision that referee Mark Clattenburg and assistant Rob Lewis beat themselves up about it. I spoke to Mark very soon afterwards and told him it wasn’t his fault and that nobody blamed him, but he was very upset because it was so clearly a goal.

       Interestingly, though, at the time, Sky television’s commentators were not sure until they’d seen a replay. That is what often happens. Once we’ve all seen a dozen replays of an incident, we convince ourselves that what happened was obvious. Mark and Rob didn’t have any replays and had to go on what they’d seen at the time. The problem was that Rob didn’t give himself a chance of seeing anything much. He went into sprint mode, belting along the line to try to get back closer to the goal, and his head went down as he ran. It is easy to be critical with hindsight, but instead of racing back quite so frantically, Rob should have concentrated on the flight of the ball. So I think there is a good learning point from the Mendes-Carroll goal. It is that there are times when, as a referee or assistant, you have to accept that you must sacrifice proximity for viewing angle.

       You have to keep an awareness of what is going on and what might be about to happen, and so you will notice good referees sometimes stop running forwards and take a step to one side to get a better angle. Similarly, an assistant should cover the ground as quickly as possible but while maintaining a good view. The assistant’s two main functions are to watch for offsides and to indicate when the ball goes out of play. As soon as Mendes hit his shot, there was no possibility of an offside and so Rob could and should have concentrated on ‘ball out of play’. With hindsight he knows he should have focused on the ball and the possibility that it would go into the goal.

      RED CARD FOR POLL

       I HAVE my own reason for remembering the name of the ‘Russian’ linesman, Tofik Bakhramov. As I have explained, he was really from Azerbaijan. The top stadium in that country is named after him. I refereed my first full international match there on 2 April 1997 (not, as some of you might imagine, the day before). I remember clearly that there was a sign showing a picture of a Kalashnikov with a cross through it, instructing everyone to leave rifles outside the stadium. You don’t see that in this country. Not since Millwall moved from the old Den.

       I remember clearly that my match in the Tofik Bakhramov Stadium was a World Cup qualifier between Azerbaijan and Finland, and that the home side lost 2-1. What I don’t remember with any clarity is the hospitality afterwards, because instead of the few beers we were hoping for, the officials were given double shots of vodka.

       Our hosts kept toasting us. Me and Steve Dunn (who was my Fourth Official again) kept replying to the toasts. Every time we did so, our glasses were refilled. After about 15 double vodkas, we realized that they wouldn’t stop toasting us until we stopped toasting them. By then we could barely walk.

       Finland had won the match. If Azerbaijan had won, the toasting would never have stopped. We’d still be there knocking back the doubles. But then all Englishmen should be happy to raise a glass to Bakhramov, the man whose decision won us the World Cup.

      FACT! THE THIRD MAN

       THE ‘Russian’ linesman and referee Gottfried Dienst are well remembered, but who was the other linesman? He was Karol Galba, from what was then known as Czechoslovakia. He had refereed one match at the 1962 World Cup and went on to be the first president of the UEFA referees’ committee. In 2006, when the new Wembley stadium was being built, a ceremony was held on the pitch to mark the fortieth anniversary of the 1966 Final. Galba, the only surviving match official, attended, along with players from both sides.

       2 Zidane Heads for the Dressing Room

      THE MATCH

      Was video evidence used to ‘convict’ the world’s greatest player in the world’s biggest fixture? That is the question I find myself asking the more I think about the 2006 World Cup Final.

      The best player in the world? That was Zinedine Zidane. He’d won that title three times. He also won the World Cup with France, in Paris in 1998, and the European Championship two years later. He helped Juventus to two successive European Champions League finals and became the world’s most expensive player when he joined Real Madrid for 76 million euros. He scored the winning goal when the Spanish club won the Champions League. It was a remarkable career and it was to have an extraordinary conclusion.

      In May 2006 he announced that he would retire after that year’s World Cup. So, when his beloved France reached the Final, it meant that the finest footballer on the planet was going to play his last competitive match in the globe’s biggest game. Nobody of his stature had ever chosen such a prestigious stage for his last bow. But, on the day, he made his exit as the villain, sent off for violent conduct. What an incredible story.

      Yet is the full story even more intriguing? Like many others in refereeing circles, I cannot help wondering whether the officials used video technology against Zidane in Berlin’s Olympiastadion on 9 July 2006. If I had been the referee СКАЧАТЬ