Seeing Red (18 page)

Below
The start of my last match as a professional referee – Derby County v West Bromwich Albion at Wembley in the 2007 Championship play-off final.

Above
My family. Josie, Gemma and Harry with me and Julia in our garden in Tring.

supplied with proper, coordinated training kits and living the lives of professional athletes. It was a magnificent time. Our hobby had become our job and, like any group of blokes doing the same tasks and sharing difficult experiences, we built a camaraderie. The only people who really understood what it was like to referee in the Premiership were others who were doing it, and there we all were together. You didn't have to explain anything about your world to your peers and contemporaries. There was a special, unspoken understanding and we laughed together at some of the abuse and criticism we received from outsiders as a way of dealing with it. Strong, lasting friendships were formed.

Philip Don wanted us there on Wednesday evenings for dinner to have a relaxing, sociable time and be ready for serious training on Thursday morning. On Thursday afternoon we had a session with video recordings of match incidents and refereeing talking points. Then we'd train again on Fridays and have a motivational session before lunch. You could either stay for Friday lunch or disperse before lunch.

The golfers among us used to book in at Staverton Park by Wednesday lunch time and play a round of golf in the afternoon before the others arrived. Peter Jones was appointed social secretary and on Thursdays we had quiz nights. We went out tenpin bowling occasionally. We just enjoyed ourselves as a group.

There was always blokey humour going on. It was like twenty mates at a holiday camp. The funniest man in the group, without a doubt, was Paul Durkin. He had our total respect, because he was a top, top referee, but he was always larking about and was easily the most popular of the group. On one memorable occasion, when Matt Weston was giving
us a hard time about a training session, Durks found a kid's scooter and started riding around us, weaving in and out between us in the dressing room. We were all laughing so much we were hurting. He fitted on the scooter as well, because he was only five feet five inches tall but he joked about that as well, telling us that short was the new tall. He refereed in the same way – not on a scooter, admittedly, but with a smile on his face and with a wicked sense of humour. Fans and players understood that and appreciated it.

Steve Dunn was another good, solid bloke to have around. He was a bit too solid, if truth be known. He had owned a newsagents in Bristol and should have sold the sweets and chocolates instead of eating them. The fitness tests were sometimes problematic for him, but he was good to be around at Staverton and he was a much better referee than he perhaps believed himself to be. Dunny and I were mates before we started going to Staverton. In fact, in the week before Dunny took charge of the 2001 FA Cup Final between Arsenal and Liverpool, Graham Barber and I went down to Bristol to help him prepare.

We had our in-jokes and, for some long-forgotten reason, we used to do an Arthur Askey impersonation, saying, ‘Aye thang yow' and miming doffing an imaginary hat. When I was refereeing a Real Madrid Champions League game, with Dunny as the fourth official, I was particularly pleased with myself when I spotted a foul. So, turning to Dunny by the halfway line, I touched my imaginary hat and mouthed, ‘Aye thang yow.' Dunny laughed of course, but anyone else among the 80,000 crowd in the Bernabeu Stadium who noticed us must have wondered what on earth was going on.

During one pre-season, the refs all went away to a hotel for a break from Staverton. The referees' rooms were all on
the second floor, in a rectangle overlooking the flat roof of a function room on the ground floor. The weather was warm and so most of us left our bedroom windows open and there was some banter shouted between rooms. Steve Dunn invited Mike Dean over to his room and so Deano climbed out of his window to walk across the flat roof to Dunn's room. But before Deano could get in, Paul Durkin, who was sharing the room with Dunn, closed the window. Deano made his way back to his own room but his room-mate, Phil Dowd, closed that window as well. Then another light went on, and out of one of the windows popped Philip Don's head. Deano was caught, literally, out on the tiles.

At Staverton, one running gag was the presentation of a light blue tank top jumper to the referee who did something to deserve it – if he had a nightmare at training or did something clumsy at meal times or said something daft. It was the sort of thing footballers do, although they usually do it with some sort of hideous training top. We got the hideous bit right. The tank top was appalling and if you were ‘awarded' it, you had to wear it all day. The others were all trying to get Graham Barber or me, and if we were ‘awarded' the tank top of shame, we wore it. Nobody ever said, ‘No, I am not doing that.'

Nobody missed the Thursday quiz night either. You might not fancy it one week, but at 8.30 pm you'd be upstairs in the York Suite, ready to try to answer questions on the subject of the night – music, sport or whatever. There were bingo nights as well, which were very rude and very funny.

Four of us who were particularly close mates – Durks, Dunny, Barbs and Pollie –became founder members of an unofficial ‘Red Wine Club' which convened in the evenings. We would discuss refereeing matters over a bottle of hotel
red, and were often joined by some of the younger refs such as Mike Dean, Andy D'Urso, Rob Styles and Phil Dowd.

During the second Christmas get-together at Staverton, Barbs had to referee a Carling Cup tie between Aston Villa and Liverpool. The plan was that, after dinner at Staverton, the rest of us would adjourn to the bar to watch the game and then the Red Wine Club would convene in my room for a cheese and wine party. The kick-off at Villa Park was delayed for a quarter of an hour and Barbs was interviewed on Sky Sports by Clare Tomlinson. She said, ‘Disappointing that the start has been delayed, Graham.'

He replied, ‘Not half. There will be no cheese left at the cheese and wine party back at the hotel.'

Back at Staverton, Philip Don joined in the laugher and said, ‘He's funny. Good joke.' Our manager was blissfully unaware that Barbs was speaking the truth. We made sure the prophecy was fulfilled by eating all the cheese before Barbs eventually showed up at my room.

Thinking back, I am moved with affection for some of those guys from the first few years at Staverton. Eddie Wolstenholme – ‘Steady Eddie' – was a lovely chap. Dave Pugh, a Scouser who had an ad-hoc double act with Mike Dean, was a scream. Steve Bennett was our conscience, who tried to make sure we did things correctly, and we respected him for that. Uriah Rennie, who was a magistrate, was always getting us involved in fundraising for various charities. They were good people and those were good days.

But the good days didn't last. After a few years, the exciting novelty of Staverton began to wear off. We were all starting to take our new lives for granted. Instead of being overjoyed about having free training kit, we started complaining about the fit or the cut. Instead of being excited
by each other's company, the all-embracing camaraderie started to fragment. Cliques started forming.

I can see that to some of the other refs, it appeared that the Red Wine Club was a clique. That was not what we intended. Nobody was barred. But we couldn't have twenty or so blokes sitting about in one bedroom, and now I can see that those who did not join in might well have felt excluded. To add to that problem, Barbs and I were both in the top refereeing rank in Europe and regarded as the top two in England. To the refs who had not joined the unofficial Red Wine Club, we could well have seemed a self-appointed elite. That was not how we felt about it at all – we were just mates having a natter – but I can understand how it must have looked.

I also believe, looking back, that I overdid the mickey-taking, or perhaps didn't get it right. I was still being the class clown, but at school I had been the joker to win acceptance. At Staverton, I had some status from being a top referee and so, although I didn't know it, when I ribbed any of the younger referees, it had a different effect to the one I intended.

If I said to Graham Barber, ‘I saw you on the telly. You missed a penalty. Again,' he would reply, ‘Yeah and you missed two bookings and a sending off.' But if I said to someone like Mike Dean, ‘You missed a penalty,' he would laugh but later, alone in his room, he might think, ‘Graham Poll thinks I made a big mistake.'

There are very few things I would change about my life, given the opportunity. I have made errors, but they are part of who I am. Yet I would change some aspects of my refereeing career if I could. I don't mean I would go back and award a particular penalty or anything. I mean I would alter the
way I behaved in some circumstances – including my demeanor in those days at Staverton. I didn't deal with the situation I was in as well as I should have. Some felt shut out from the Red Wine Club and when I took the mickey out of those refs outside our little group, it was not a comfortable experience for them. I did not recognize that then. I regret it now.

I was by no means the only one getting the dynamics of Staverton wrong and as the team spirit started to fracture, as the quiz nights and bingo sessions ran their course, perhaps the managers should have acted to change things and freshen them up again. Then again, perhaps it is unreasonable to hope that we could all remain best buddies for ever. In any company or organization in which twenty people work, they will not all be lifelong pals who want to socialize together.

So rivalries emerged. Some referees started to think, ‘I am a professional now and I should be getting this game or that game.' Jealousies took hold. We were all competitive by nature, and all dedicated, driven people. Without those qualities, we would not have scaled the refereeing ladder. But with those traits, there were bound to be frictions and frustrations, and a lot of the frustrations were because of me, or rather, because I got the most games and the best games. Philip Don wanted me to referee as often as possible, because I was getting the top marks. When he was replaced by his deputy, Keith Hackett, he too kept giving me the best matches and lots of them. Joe Guest at the FA was giving me plenty of work as well and I was also getting European and international fixtures. In my final seasons as a referee, the number of UEFA and FIFA games I did meant that I missed most of the Staverton sessions but some of the guys there did
not miss me. Some of them resented my success, but what was I supposed to do? Should I have rejected some appointments to salve their egos? I once asked Hackett, jokingly, if he wanted me to be the least popular referee ever. He replied, ‘I don't care. I want you to be the best referee. If you're unpopular it doesn't matter.'

John Gregory had been right all those years before.

The first season of professional referees brought some of the most extraordinary events of my career, but before recounting them here, I want to explain a little bit more about why one of the changes that was introduced – the increased security for referees – was so welcome. It is sad that referees going to a sporting fixture need to be driven there in an unmarked people carrier but every referee can tell you stories about occasions when fans definitely regarded football as more than a game – and the match officials as fair game.

Before we went pro, I had a few unpleasant brushes with fans. One came in October 1998 after I sent off Stuart Pearce. He was playing for Newcastle at home to West Ham in the Premiership. He struck Trevor Sinclair with his arm and it was an obvious red card. Obvious to me, that is, but the ‘Toon Army' did not agree and their mood towards me was not helped when West Ham went on to win 3–0.

Julia and I had arranged to meet some friends for a drink in the Vermont Hotel where we were staying. I went to the bar while Julia freshened up. I had barely touched my drink
when four Newcastle fans came over to me and one said, ‘You are not welcome here.'

I said, ‘Sorry …?'

‘You heard what I said,' was the reply.

I tried to defuse the situation with a joke that had worked before: ‘Don't tell me you've mixed me up with my brother. Bloody referee. He's always getting me into trouble.'

The class clown's act did not work. One of them said, ‘We know exactly who you are. Leave.'

I asked, ‘Can I finish my drink?'

He said, ‘No.' I put down my bottle of Bud and left.

Of course, people like that are not representative of Newcastle fans. So to redress the balance I should tell you that on another occasion a supporter of that club demonstrated a very different attitude. On the night before a Newcastle versus Sunderland game, I was having dinner with Graham Barber, who was my guest at the game, when a couple at the next table recognized us. The guy asked, ‘Which of you two is doing the game tomorrow?' When I told him it was me, he said, ‘Right. I'm a Newcastle fan and if Newcastle win you can sleep with my girlfriend.'

We all laughed, even his girlfriend. Then, later, when the guy left the table to visit the toilet, she said, ‘Yes, for the right result you can sleep with me – no problem. But I am a “Mackem”. So it's only if Sunderland win.' I often wonder how that couple got on with their relationship. They were engaged when we met them. I wonder if their mixed marriage lasted. By the way, Sunderland won 2–1, but not, I hasten to add, because I accepted the offer.

Throughout my career I was never offered a genuine, monetary bribe, although my name was mentioned in the corruption scandal in Italian football just before the 2006
World Cup. At the heart of that scandal was the suggestion that certain clubs selected the referees they wanted for specific games. My name came up because I took charge of a Champions League game involving Juventus. The police tape recorded a telephone conversation in which Luciano Moggi, the Director General of Juventus, complained that I wasn't the ref he wanted!

It is worth emphasizing that, whatever the English media say about our referees, they are regarded throughout Europe as incorruptible. That is not to suggest that lots of other countries have problems, but there have been allegations involving Portuguese, Greek, Italian, Polish and German officials.

Anyway, let's get on to my first season as a professional referee, 2001/02, because when I took charge of a World Cup qualifying game between Slovenia and Russia, some Russians did wonder if I had taken a backhander. Perhaps their suspicions were partly due to the fact that bribery was not unheard of in Russia. Alex Spirrin, who refereed in that country for a long time, once told me, ‘The hardest game to referee is the one when you've already been told what the result will be.'

My game, in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, brought me into contact for the second time in my career with Srecko Katanec, the Slovenia coach. I'd had dealings with him at the Euro 2000 game against Yugoslavia when I was fourth official and when he applied psychological pressure throughout the match. If any free-kick was awarded against his team, he was up on his feet in the technical area, complaining and telling all the officials to be fair to Slovenia.

You can steel yourself against that sort of thing but subconsciously, does it influence you? Do you try too hard to
be seen to be fair? For instance, after a sending-off, four of the next five free-kicks are usually awarded to the side who are down to ten men. I defy any referee who has officiated at the highest level to say, hand on heart, he has never been affected by a clever coach or a hostile crowd.

In that game in Ljubljana, Katanec was at it again all through the first half and so, at half-time, I warned him about his antics. He apologized and calmed down in the second half, but I can't pretend that I was not aware, at some level, of his insistence that Slovenia were a tiny nation who did not get a fair deal from officials.

During the game, the Russians kept holding opponents at corners. I warned one Russian defender, who had been particularly guilty of shirt-tugging, that if he did it again I would award a penalty against him. In the final minutes, with the score 1–1, a Slovenian corner came over and the Russian defender was at it again. I blew my whistle and pointed to the penalty spot. Did the pressure get to me? Was I ‘looking for it' because Katanec had sowed seeds of doubts about unfairness? Did I see more in the shirt-pull than I thought?

At the time, I made what I believed to be an honest decision. But now, with twenty-twenty hindsight, I know it was the wrong decision. Two things were confirmed for me by that penalty in Slovenia. The first was that referees are remembered for the things they give and not the things they miss. The second was that the timing of the decision robbed it of credibility. By that I mean it was too late in the game to resolve the issue of shirt-pulling. I should have dealt with it long before I did. And, because I had let a lot of it go, when I finally reacted to one offence, the decision caused uproar because it was not consistent with what had gone on before.

The shirt-tugging, wrestling, holding, blocking and general free-for-all at corners and set pieces is a problem for referees – but it is not a problem for players. They accept it as part of the game. They practise it every day in training – both doing it and negating it – and regard that as part of their job. But that doesn't mean it is right.

For referees, the difficulty is that there are at least three or four offences at every corner and every free-kick. Both sides are at it, so who do you penalize? What we were encouraged to do, in my last few seasons as a ref, was to intervene before the corner was taken. We were supposed to signal that the kick should not be taken yet, and then lecture the worst offenders. But that didn't really stop anything – penalty areas still looked like a barn dance, with everyone taking their partners.

Then what tends to happen with referees is that they think, ‘I've got to do something. Next time, I'll have to give something.' Yet the next time, you are watching someone holding an opponent but he lets go just before the corner is taken, and so you don't give anything. So you think, ‘Next time.' Then you penalize someone during the rough and tumble at the next corner, but it is probably nowhere near as bad as half the tugging and shoving that has gone on before. The easiest thing for me to do, now that I am retired, would be to deliver a stern sermon to my former colleagues and say, ‘You should sort it out.' Yet the truth is that I didn't solve the problem when I was refereeing.

In Slovenia I gave one penalty, too late in the game to have credibility. Milenko Acimovic scored from the spot and Slovenia won 2–1. Only one country would qualify automatically. Russia were the group leaders, Slovenia were in second place. It was a massively important victory for them and potentially a very damaging defeat for Russia.

At the final whistle, the Slovenians were too busy celebrating to worry about the referee. No police, security staff or stewards came to help me as I left the field. The Russians were incensed about the penalty and Alexander Mostovoi, their creative midfield player, was even more infuriated than his team-mates. I believe Mostovoi thought I had been ‘got at'. I also think he might have assaulted me if Phil Sharp, one of the assistants, had not used his flag as a barrier.

Once we had battled our way back to the dressing room, we learned that Horst Brunmeier, FIFA's Swiss match observer, was giving me a good mark. He said the penalty was controversial but that I had ‘such a good game previously'.

The Russian newspapers did not agree.
Sport-Express
said, ‘In Ljubljana, referee Poll acted like a big-time bandit.'
Sovietsky Sport
called my decision, ‘Murder in the eyes of millions.'

The next morning I went for a walk with the assistants (Phil Sharp and Dave Babski) and fourth official Andy D'Urso. We stolled through a park and went past a huge church. The service had finished and the congregation were talking among themselves outside the church. Most of them turned to stare at us, because we were conspicuous in our FIFA tracksuits. So we all acknowledged them, in a friendly fashion, as you do. We went, ‘All right?', smiled and nodded. Nothing. Just stony stares in response, which struck us as odd.

Later, an official drove us on a little guided tour. He showed us the park and we commented that we had been there that morning. We mentioned the fine church. He said, ‘That is the Russian Orthodox Church.' And the rouble dropped. The congregation had been Russians who did not feel much like smiling at me.

I reported to FIFA that I believed Mostovoi had tried to assault me but I do not think any action was ever taken. In the end, Russia won their group and Slovenia reached the World Cup finals through the play-offs. My concern was that the controversy would damage my own prospects of reaching the finals. That was how I viewed every game: would it help or hinder my progress to the next target in my career?

The postscript to the Slovenia game came in the summer of 2003 when I was invited to referee a friendly in Moscow as part of an anti-racism campaign. I got through the match without showing any cards and Nikolai Levnikov, the former Russian ref who was on UEFA's referees committee, said I would be welcome to return to Russia any day. That particular slate had been wiped clean.

But back in 2001, a week after the Slovenia versus Russia match, I was scheduled to referee Roma's home Champions League tie against Real Madrid. In my hotel room on the afternoon of the match, I turned on the TV and saw a plane crash into a building. My initial reaction was that I was watching a movie channel but I wasn't. It was the news. This was 11 September 2001. Like billions around the world, I watched in a state of devastated, shocked disbelief as the horrific events of 9/11 unfolded live, on television.

I rang the match delegate and said, ‘The game will be off, I presume.'

He said, ‘You have to prepare as if the fixture will go ahead. We will meet as arranged at 6.30 and I will let you know of developments.'

It felt fundamentally wrong to pack my bag for a football match. New York's twin towers had been reduced to rubble
and yet I was checking to see whether I had a spare watch and whistle. Of course, assistant referees Dave Bryan and Phil Sharp, and fourth official Andy D'Urso all believed fervently that the tie could not, and should not, go ahead.

The police contingent due to escort us to the match was half an hour late because, understandably and correctly, they had other priorities. The city of Rome, like other major cities around the globe, was on a high alert in case more terrorist attacks were planned. From what we could gather, there were discussions going on between the governments of the United States and European nations about whether the Champions League ties that night should be played. A factor for consideration was that the various stadiums were mostly sold out and fans were milling about. Airports were closed, so travelling supporters could not fly home.

I learned, several years later, that mine was one of only two matches which the authorities concluded really had to go ahead. They believed that the safest thing to do at these two games was to play them. And, because they needed to play two of the games, they decided to go ahead with all that night's fixtures, although it was not until an hour and a quarter before my kick-off that it was formally agreed that we would try to stage a football match.

At Roma's Stadio Olimpico, the dressing rooms are in a corner of the ground but you walk along a concrete passage, out of sight of spectators, along the back of half of the main stand before emerging onto the pitch near the halfway line. That night, the long walk with the teams just added to the sense of unreality; the feeling that it was not right. Gabriel Batistuta, Roma's Argentine striker, and Luis Figo, Real Madrid's Portuguese forward, were walking side by side and I talked with them. It felt surreal to all of us. None of us
could believe we were about to be part of a game of football after what we had watched on our TV screens.

In England the players would have stood in the centre-circle for a minute's silence but in Europe, football shows its respect in a different manner. The players lined up as usual but, at the kick-off, the ball was moved only half a metre and then all the players stopped and held their positions. We gave one minute of the match to the memory of those who had died in New York. During that minute, the 82,000 crowd clapped in a restrained, respectful manner. It was an inadequate gesture, of course, but it was heartfelt and moving. As I stood there on the pitch, listening to that crowd of people making a quite eerie noise with that subdued clapping, I was not alone in fighting back a tear or two.

After a minute had passed I made a signal for play to resume and a game of football took place. Real won 2–1 and afterwards the match officials went for a sombre dinner. Telephone networks around the globe were in meltdown and so we could not speak to our families. We did not know how or when we would get home. We felt dislocated and isolated, and, of course, all the time, there was the sense of appalled shock about the attack on New York.