Referees should not savour the spotlight

PERHAPS the best piece of advice ever handed out to football referees came from Alan Hardaker, a much-respected former Football League secretary.

“Referees should arrive by the back door,” said Hardaker. “And leave by the back door.”

I thought of that observation as Mark Hughes was chewing somewhat bitterly on his sour grapes following Blackburn’s defeat against Manchester United in the Carling Cup semi-final.

Hughes’ gripe, not for the first time, surrounded the work of referee Graham Poll, an official he accused of enjoying his “celebrity status.”

“He thinks 61,000 people have come here to see him,” said Hughes.

Now I’m no big fan of Poll. In my book he is the George Galloway of football officialdom. A man with obvious talent and a ready phrase but one who loves the sound of his own voice, the sight of flashing camera bulbs and the company of the rich and famous.

The sort of character who should pay more attention to doing what he is paid for and slightly less to ingratiating himself with the showbiz side of football. It is what gives managers of unfashionable clubs such as Hughes the feeling that he is prone to favour the Premiership big boys.

But if Poll ever was a contestant on Celebrity Big Brother I suspect we’d discover that he had never made a biased decision in his life.

Just like most of football’s weary officials. The truth is that in this age of television cameras everywhere and studios full of experts, refereeing decisions are scrutinised more forensically than many crime scenes with super slow-mo, lines superimposed across the pitch and a raft of state-of-the-art technology.

While the referee has a nanosecond to make a decision, the analysts can take the best part of a two-hour programme pouring over images taken from every conceivable angle. And still not come to agreement.

Refereeing is not an exact science. Despite the rule book and the referee forums and endless reports by supervisors in the stands, so much of a referee’s job remains opinion and interpretation.

Phil Dowd gave a penalty kick to Arsenal on Tuesday for an obvious hand ball by Wigan’s Stephane Henchoz but from where I was sitting, turned down two equally blatant penalties when Sol Campbell twice hauled down Wigan’s Jason Roberts.

Poll awarded a penalty to United for hand ball and refused Blackburn a spot-kick for an incident which was all but identical. He also allowed United’s winning goal by Louis Saha after Blackburn midfielder Tugay was flattened by Darren Fletcher in the build-up.

The point is not that, as Hughes believed, the decisions were wrong, because half the viewers were no doubt convinced they were right, more that television and technology have made the referee the centre of attention when football would be much better served by the old adage that ‘The best referees are the ones you don’t notice.’

Hardly surprising that some referees - recently retired official Jeff Winter a prime example, begin to relish the publicity.

In Winter’s soon-to-be-published autobiography ‘Who’s the B*****d in the Black’, he writes of his last match at Anfield.

“I played a little bit of extra time, waiting until play was at the Kop end, before sounding the final shrill blast...the fans behind the goal burst into spontaneous applause. It was longer and louder than normal, even for a big home win. Did they know it was my final visit? Was it applause for me? They are such knowledgeable football people, it would not surprise me.”

Talk about delusions of grandeur.

Modern referees cannot dodge the intense media focus, but neither should they savour the spotlight. Hardaker’s suggestion is even more pertinent today than it was back in the Sixties.

Referees should arrive and leave via the back door.