You are the ref until Blatter sees the light

IT WAS interesting to learn this week that the Army v Navy American football game played on December 7, 1963 was the occasion for the first use of action replay in televised sport.

The big moment came with an Army touchdown late in the game, the cue for the adventurous director to roll it there again. Concerned that innocent viewers might misinterpret what they were seeing, the commentator for the match reportedly screamed: “This is not live, ladies and gentlemen, Army did not score again.”

And so a staple of all televised sport was born although, almost a half-century later, the world’s most popular game still hasn’t come to terms with the technology’s most obvious and useful application, leaving football to lag behind rugby union, rugby league, tennis and most of the major American sports, including, believe it or not, rodeo.