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

Geoff Hurst, The Hand Of God And The Biggest Rows In World Football

Graham Poll

Copyright

HarperSport

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublisher Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in September 2009

Copyright © Graham Poll 2009

Graham Poll asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007313747

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007343669

Version: 2016-09-19

I appreciate and thank Julia, Gemma, Josie and Harry for their support but dedicate this book to the man who introduced me to football, refereeing and life—Henry James Poll, aka ‘Big Jim’, aka my dad.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

1-Reputations on the Line

2-Zidane Heads for the Dressing Room

3-A Big Hand For Maradona

4-Schumacher's Crime of the Century

5-Going by the Book

6-A Tale of Two Penalties

7-Beckham's Hanging Offence

8-The Vegetable Patch

9-Flagging in Japan

10-My German Lesson

Keep Reading

Index

Acknowledgments

Also by Graham Poll

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

On 22 June 2006, in the World Cup in Germany, I showed the yellow card to an Australian-born player twice but did not send him off.

in the World Cup in Germany, another referee showed his yellow card twice to an Australian player and did not realize. It was the same mistake, in astonishingly similar circumstances, precisely 32 years earlier—but what happened next was very different.

In my match, Australia versus Croatia in Stuttgart, I showed Josep Simunic two yellows but later sent him off, belatedly, after brandishing a third yellow at him. Hardly a day goes by, still, without my having to hear people making what they think is a joke about it.

In the 1974 game, Australia versus Chile in Berlin, the referee was Jafar Namdar, from Iran. He cautioned Australia’s Ray Richards in the first half and then, six minutes from the end of the game, booked Richards again for time-wasting. Namdar did not get his red card out. Instead, he trotted away, unaware he had now cautioned Richards twice.

Up in the stand, the Welsh referee Clive Thomas was watching. He realized the mistake and made it his business to find a FIFA official to point out what had happened. The official hurriedly told another FIFA man, who dashed down to the side of the pitch and informed the nearest linesman. Cue some frantic flag waving. Eventually, although four minutes had passed since referee Namdar had shown the second yellow card to Richards, he showed him the red.

If only someone—anyone!—had got the message to me 32 years later. If only someone had written a book about World Cup controversies after 1974; perhaps I would have read it, learned, and lived happily every after.

Now I have written that book. I have looked at ten major controversial incidents from different World Cups. I have examined them from a modern perspective, compared them with very recent controversies in the Premier League, and discovered how the game has changed, how refereeing has changed—and how some things have not altered at all.

But this is not a refereeing book. It is a football book, because I am passionate about the game and I hope that this book will enable anyone who shares that passion to notice more of what goes on during games. I hope it helps interpret events with a deeper perception. For example, did petty rivalry between the match officials help Diego Maradona get away with the ‘Hand of God’ goal he punched in against England? And why, when I was refereeing, did I sometimes deliberately give a foul for one team or find a reason to book a player from the other team?

I’ll clear up those and many other mysteries and explode some of the myths of the game as well. Then, the next time the bloke behind you at a match shouts, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ at a ref, you’ll be informed enough to decide whether the spectator is correct!

So that is what this book is. Now let me tell you what it is not. It is not me saying, ‘I wouldn’t have done that,’ or, ‘I would have done it this way.’ After all, who am I to sit in judgement on World Cup referees after what happened to me? But writing this book, and really scrutinizing all the incidents, ancient and modern, has been a learning process for me. I hope reading it is stimulating for you. Anyone interested in football can gain knowledge from looking at its major controversies. By increasing our understanding, we can all enhance our enjoyment of football.

1 Reputations on the Line

THE MATCH

On the one occasion England won the World Cup, the Final swung in our favour because the match officials gave a goal when the ball did not cross the line. I would like to think that now, more than forty years on, the officials would get it right if a similar incident occurred. Yet the thing that scares me is that they might not. The 2010 World Cup Final could be determined by a ‘goal’ that is not a goal, and this time it might be England who lose out.

By stating that modern referees and assistants ought to get it correct, I am not saying that makes me, or any of the current refs, better than the man in charge that day in 1966, Gottfried Dienst. I am not saying that at all. I can understand how and why, in the circumstances of the time, the goal was allowed. But the world has changed and so has refereeing.

It would have been a bit difficult for me to ref the 1966 Final, because it was the day after my third birthday. It was before some of you were born, no doubt. But football folk know that one of England’s goals was among the most dubious ever allowed in a major match.

So let’s go back to the sunny afternoon of 30 July 1966. Wembley was full but the country’s streets were empty. The nation was watching black and white TV coverage of the World Cup Final. An astonishing drama unfolded.

Helmut Haller shot West Germany into the lead after twelve minutes but, seven minutes later, Geoff Hurst headed an equalizer. Then, deep into the second half, Martin Peters scored. It was 2-1 to England. We thought we’d won. But, as the very last seconds ebbed away, the Germans were given a free-kick. George Cohen blocked it but the ball bobbled across the six-yard box…and Wolfgang Webber dived in, feet first, to score. It was 2-2. Extra-time.

Alf Ramsey, the England manager, told his troops, ‘You have won the World Cup once. Now go and win it again’, and eleven minutes into the extra period, Alan Ball galloped down the right and slung in a low cross. It went behind Hurst, who had to stop and turn around, so he had his back to goal when the ball reached him. He controlled it with the inside of his right foot, swivelled around, took a couple of staccato steps and slammed in a shot against the bar. The ball ricocheted down…

On BBC television, Kenneth Wolstenholme described the tense events. ‘Ball, running himself flat. Now Hurst. Can he do it? He has done! Yes! Yes. NO! No. The linesman says No.’ There was a long pause. Then Wolstenholme repeated, in a deflated tone, ‘The linesman says No.’

The little referee, Herr Dienst, bustled over to the much taller linesman, Tofik Bakhramov. No more than three or four words were exchanged. Abruptly, the referee turned towards the halfway line, put his whistle to his mouth and blew. Wolstenholme screamed, ‘It’s a goal! It’s a goal!’ His ecstatic response must have been matched in front rooms and parlours all over England.

The goal was awarded, and it turned the tide of the match emphatically and decisively in England’s favour. Just before the end of the second period of extra-time, as Hurst loped up field one more time, there was some more memorable commentary. Wolstenholme ad-libbed the lines that have become immortal. ‘Some people are on the pitch. They think it’s all over. It is now!’ Hurst had drilled another shot into the German net. It was 4-2. England were champions of the planet.

THE ISSUES

When we consider the controversy over Hurst’s crucial second goal, the remarkable thing is that there wasn’t any. There was no dissent at all at the time. Hurst, who was eventually knighted for his heroics, will tell you that not a single day has passed since 30 July 1966 without someone debating whether the ball crossed the line. But there was no argument during the game. Watching the footage again, the most astounding aspect (apart from the fact that the linesman had a belt and a substantial belly!) was how genteel it all was. Our chaps did not harangue the ref to give the goal. When he did, there was not even a whimper from the Germans.

In the modern game, players have tantrums if throw-in decisions go against them. If the events of 1966 were repeated now, there would be riots. Yet only Webber of Germany and our Roger Hunt ambled over as the referee went to talk to the linesman. Neither player said anything. Once the decision had been made, Webber reached out briefly (as if about to tap the ref on his shoulder from behind and say something), thought better of it, withdrew his arm, meekly jogged into position and readied himself for the restart.

While I was writing this book, I was at a lunch and found myself sitting next to Roger Hunt. I asked him two questions. The first was, ‘Why didn’t you bang the ball in to make sure when it bounced down from the bar?’ People have always pointed to the fact that he did not do so as evidence that he must have believed the ball had already crossed the line. But he said that he couldn’t have got to it in time. A defender nipped in and headed the ball away over the bar. My second question was, ‘Why didn’t the England players and the West Germans crowd around the ref and the linesman?’

He replied, ‘We wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that. It wouldn’t have occurred to us to do that. The referee said it was a goal, so it was a goal.’

There were far fewer TV cameras and, remember, no replays. When something happened during a match, you saw it from one angle at normal speed and nobody was able to review it. So nobody was sure whether the ball had crossed the goal-line or not. Nobody saw the incident again after it had happened—not Wolstenholme, nor any of the media, nor anyone sitting at home. They were forced to rely on an independent arbiter—the linesman—and accept his ruling.

Admittedly, it was not always peace and tranquillity, even in those days. In England’s 1966 quarterfinal, Argentina’s captain, Antonio Rattin, was sent off but refused to leave the pitch for several minutes. Yet mostly, when there was uncertainty about events, players were much more prepared to take the word of the neutral judges—the match officials. Times change. But the role of the referee and assistants has not. They are still merely independent arbiters. It is the attitude towards them that has changed.

That said, it wasn’t a goal! When I talked to Roger Hunt at that lunch in December 2008 he was still unequivocal in his belief that it was, that the ball did cross the line. But the Germans never thought it was a goal, and the day after the Final some newspaper photographs appeared to show the ball bouncing on the line and not over it. Those pictures cast the first shadows of real doubt in this country. Then, months later, a film of the 1966 World Cup was released. It was called Goal!but showed more clearly that it wasn’t a goal. The film included the first slowed-down footage of the ball bouncing down from the crossbar. Since then, as film and television technology has developed, it has become possible to look at the incident frame by frame. Computer simulations of the moment have been created. It wasn’t a goal. It was such an injustice, in fact, that the expression ‘Wembley tor’ has entered the German vernacular. It is used to describe anything undeserved.

The more you look at it, the more difficult it becomes to work out why the linesman convinced himself that the ball had completely crossed the line. It was a brave decision by Tofik Bakhramov, but it was wrong, and a major factor was probably that he was not a specialist linesman. Before 1994, only referees went to World Cups. No linesmen went, so the refs took turns at running the lines. Bakhramov was the top ref in Azerbaijan and would not have operated regularly as a linesman for many years. These days a specialist ‘assistant referee’ would get the job. I know, to my cost, that they can make mistakes as well, but they are much less likely to do so than someone who usually referees and then suddenly has to use the different set of skills needed on the line. We’ll have a look at the linesman’s job in Chapter Two, when we deal with the 2006 World Cup Final and Zinedine Zidane’s sending off. But for now, let’s just agree that being a linesman is something that needs practice—and that Bakhramov was out of practice.

Another difficulty was that the match officials did not share a common language. It was a problem that was apparent throughout the tournament. Jack Taylor, who refereed the 1974 Final, also officiated in 1966 and said, ‘With the shortage of interpreters, referees at early matches [in the 1966 finals] were often unable to give their linesmen proper instructions before going out.’

At the Final, referee Dienst was Swiss and spoke German, some French and a little English. Bakhramov was from Azerbaijan. Because his country was then in the Soviet Union, he became known after 1966 as ‘the Russian linesman’ but he was not Russian and only spoke a few words of Russian. He spoke Azerbaijani.

So consider that prolonged period, after England’s controversial third goal, when commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme believed the linesman had said ‘No’.

Did Bakhramov initially indicate No and then change his mind? Or was there confusion about what he had signalled? What was said in the very brief conversation between the ref and linesman? Did they really converse at all, if they could not speak a common language?

The joke in refereeing circles is that dear old Bakhramov was like those folk you sometimes meet on your travels abroad. You ask, ‘Do you speak English?’ They nod and say, ‘Ye-es’. You ask, ‘Which is the way to the station?’ They nod and say, ‘Ye-es’.

Is it possible that, whatever Dienst had said, Bakhramov would have nodded and said, ‘Ye-es’? Probably not. But it is certainly true that if referees and their assistants do not have a common language then problems can develop. So, since the early 1990s, FIFA, the game’s world governing body, have insisted that all officials at major tournaments speak one language—English. They have to sit English exams. So, although there is an adage about football being a universal language, nowadays the universal language of football is English.

In 1994, FIFA started using a referee and one linesman from the same country in tournament matches. The other linesman was supposed to be someone who spoke their language well. So, for instance, in that year Philip Don, who went on to become my boss as the first manager of the Select Group of professional referees in England, was selected for the World Cup in the United States and Roy Pearson, a miner’s son from Durham, went with him as ‘his’ linesman. It was hoped that the other linesman in their matches would be someone from an English-speaking nation—Canada or Malta, for instance. Yet, in fact, in the two matches Philip was given in the World Cup he had a Finnish linesman in one and a Korean in the other.

By the time the European Championships of 2000 came around, they had sorted that out a bit better and so, when I reffed in that tournament, my assistants were Phil Sharp, from Hertfordshire, and Eddie Foley from the Republic of Ireland. Then, four years later, came the next, logical development. It was decided that, from 2004, every match in major tournaments would have a team of three officials from the same country—a ref and two assistants. In theory that ensures there are no communication difficulties at all.

Now let me tell you more about modern refereeing—and why 21st-century officials probably would not have allowed Hurst’s goal. Let me start with what refs tell their assistants.

Referees, assessors and all reasonable people (so not some TV pundits or certain managers) understand that assistants can’t see everything. Players can obstruct the view, or the assistant might be looking at another area of the field, or have a bad angle. That’s understandable. That’s acceptable. The biggest mistake an assistant can make is to think he has seen something that has not actually happened. Referees don’t want assistants guessing, or reacting to instinct. We want them telling us what they have definitely, clearly seen. So, although all referees have different set speeches, I guarantee that one theme is common in pre-match instructions. The ref will tell his assistants, ‘I’ll forgive you if something happens and you don’t see it, but I don’t want you to“see” something that doesn’t happen.’

Remember—and this applies to referees as well as assistants—if you do not signal for an offence, it does not mean you are saying it did not happen. It just means you didn’t see it. Signalling for an offence indicates that you are certain you saw it. So the key instruction to assistants boils down to this: do not give a decision if there is any doubt in your mind. If that instruction had been given in 1966, our friend Tofik Bakhramov should surely not have given the goal. He must have had doubts.

Something else has changed since 1966 and it has fundamentally altered the way refs and assistants work. At the top of the modern game, match officials wear microphones and ear-pieces to talk to each other. They were introduced first in the English Premiership in time for the 1999/2000 season. Initially, we used to get interference from taxi firms, pizza delivery companies and so on. When you were trying to find out why your assistant had flagged for a foul by Roy Keane at Old Trafford, you would hear crackling instructions for the delivery of a thin-crust pepperoni!

But the equipment got better and, eventually, became extremely reliable. The microphones are kept ‘open’, which means that if either assistant says something, the ref can hear it clearly, and vice versa. So, in my 33 Premier League games in my final season for instance (2006/07), there was no real need for me to go over to an assistant. I could just talk to him via my microphone.

So why is it that, occasionally, a referee does walk over and talk to his assistant? Well, in my case, there were two sets of circumstances when, despite having radio contact, I would go to an assistant. The first was to send a message to the players, crowd, the media and TV audience. By going over to the assistant I was saying, ‘This is a big decision and we are consulting. This is not something we are doing without due consideration.’ I was demonstrating to everyone that the officials were in agreement.

The second circumstance in which I would go over to an assistant would be if a major decision was involved and I was not convinced the assistant had got it right. On those occasions, I wanted to look into his eyes and gauge whether he was calm and sure or panicky and unsure.

So, let me put myself in the boots of Herr Dienst and imagine that the radio communications system had been in use in 1966. As soon as Hurst’s shot bounced down from the crossbar, I would have said into my lip microphone, ‘Was that in?’ Perhaps Bakhramov’s response would have been to prevaricate or to admit that he was slightly unsure. That would have been enough to persuade me not to give the goal. Then I would have gone over to him, talking all the time, saying things like, ‘If we have any doubt, we must not give it. The world will understand if we get it wrong in those circumstances. But if it did not cross the line and we say it did, we are in trouble.’ If it had been me, then when I had got there I would have looked into his eyes. I would have said something like, ‘We know the importance of this decision, so are you absolutely sure the ball crossed the line completely?’ If there was a shred of doubt in the linesman’s mind, he should have shaken his head and we should have restarted play with a corner (because, after Hurst’s shot had bounced down, a German defender headed the ball out of play over the bar).

There is someone else I’d have asked for help in my era but Herr Dienst didn’t have: the Fourth Official. It was in 1991 that Fourth Officials were introduced and sent to games to act as back-up. They also wear microphones and ear-pieces. Their duties include intervening in certain specified circumstances to inform the ref about events on the field. But the Fourth Official is not supposed to tell the ref about things he has spotted on a TV screen which happens to be near him. That’s the theory. In practice, things are different, and that is something else we’ll look at in Chapter Two.

But, for now, just let’s say that I certainly expected help from the Fourth Official if something difficult happened in my matches. I didn’t always get that help, but there you go. Anyway, if I had been confronted by a ‘goal’ like Hurst’s, I would walk very, very slowly towards the assistant referee and say, ‘Did anyone else get a view?’ With that cue, I would expect the Fourth Official urgently to seek a video replay. Then he would say, ‘You can’t tell Pollie.’ Or, more likely, he would say, ‘It’s on the line Pollie. No goal.’ That might not be legal, but it would ensure natural justice was served. Sorry, Sir Geoff. Sorry, England.

That is what a referee who took charge of World Cup matches in 2006 would have done in 1966, but Gottfried Dienst was the best referee of his day, because he was given the World Cup Final. And he did what all referees of that era would have done. So I am not criticizing him at all. I am not in a position to, am I?

As for our mate Bakhramov, well, the Germans have two versions of events. In one, they say that he claimed he thought Hurst’s shot had hit the roof of the net (rather than the bar) before bouncing down. If that is true, then his eyesight was rubbish but there is no evidence that he said that and I don’t think it is plausible that he did. It is much more likely that in the split second he had, and from the angle he had, he thought the ball had bounced down overthe line. I am sure there must have been doubts in his mind. So he should not have said, ‘Ye-es’. He should have said ‘No-o’.