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POLL DANCE 16-11-06
Calum Law
'You fucking cunt, are yo fucking blind? How the fuck can that not be a penalty?!!'
After ten minutes, I could take no more. 'Listen,' I said to him, 'there's three things you need to know. One: I'm the fucking ref! I AM THE WHOLE OF THE LAW! Two: despite the fact that I don't have a yellow card, you've just been awarded one; and three: if you call me a cunt again, you're not getting a lift home.'
Yes, when my old Sunday League side failed to find a local masochist I did once or twice slip on the black hair-and-polyester-mix shirt, and it is incredible how it instantly dehumanises you. For a match fee that possibly contravenes minimum wage legislation these guys get some fearful abuse - my ex-teammates would queue up to testify that I was a particularly shameful offender in this regard.
Having said that, certain referees do naturally have a demeanour that invites odium, and Graham Poll is one. Even the name is unprepossessing: with the greatest respect to the Grahams of the world were a scriptwriter say, have the need to flag up a character as a nonentity... and Poll, despite the spelling, I'm sure made for an uncomfortable time in the schoolyard.
Poll, let's be honest, has embraced the kind of micro-celeb status of the newly-professionalised referee with more alacrity than anyone else. He's anywhere for a shilling - he probably has an agent - and seems to think to think we require him to be something other than good at his job.
Which of course he isn't. Because following on from his eagerness to go on Blue Peter is a concomitant desire to make decisions that invite attention. To be fair to Poll, he's not the only one. Uriah Rennie is the example that will instantly spring to everyone's mind and it is only tact that has stopped people pointing out what everyone anyway thinks: namely that Rennie was a tokenist appointment.
At least Rennie doesn't compound the felony (as the Yanks would say) by seeking to be a 'personality'. Poll with his creepily ingratiating blokeishness, clearly does - a strategy that is bound to backfire.
Alex Ferguson, with his 'best referee in the country' comments has raised disingenuousness to heights previously believed only theoretically possible. For can we imagine how Fergie would react were it a Manchester United opponent that received three yellow cards?
(Fergie, appropriately for one so self-important, has now been victim of two of the greatest put-downs in the history of football: Wenger's 'girlfriend' jibe and now Mourinho's retort that- after Pedro Mendes' 'goal' - 'I wouldn't talk about referees for two years' - a comment that could hardly be more dripping with sarcasm than were Jose to dip his barnet in sump oil.)
Two years one would think would be the bare minimum Poll would spend watering his rose garden after his World Cup debacle, but his continued (controversial) visibility I guess proves he has at least one essential refereeing quality - a thick skin.
Which I guess would also come in handy were he to read this piece though, despite what it seems, my intention is not character assassination. It is to call for less, not more obtrusive referees - which will only be achieved by giving them the benefit of as much assistance and technological back-up as possible.
Not merely 'did it cross the line?', but 'was it a penalty?' or a 'dive?' - even 'was it offside?' The argument that it would slow the game unnaturally I think is a false one - technology would swiftly remedy any time lag, and fans would quickly accept it as being part of the game - just as they have in cricket.
American football - where the officials are mere functionaries - should be the template. That way the referee can be returned to his rightful anonymity - an individual remarkable for no other reason than he comes from the curiously-named town of Tring.
Hand Jobs
If I see one more 'I've had a baby' goal celebration, I may actually puke. I can't be alone, surely, in hoping the imaginary baby might fly out of the imaginary cradle and suffer imaginary brain damage.
Were you to accuse me of being 'weirdly and abnormally churlish' you would, in truth, not be standing alone; nonetheless, I can't help but discern a somewhat self-aggrandising subtext to these mawkish celebrations. Hard truths, in my embittered childless opinion, need to be voiced.
So listen fella: whilst I'm happy to laud you to the skies for cracking in that right foot volley - that's where the hero worship stops. I'm aware that Alpha-ness simply spurts out of you, pell-mell, in an improbable cascade, but I couldn't care less that you've just had a sprog. Hey, your wife's not by any chance a bit of a looker too is she? Oh actually, don't answer that - I've just realised I don't give a shit. Though I would like to know when you take possession of your new Ferrari, so it would be helpful if you could mime the 'ten-to-two' position next week. Vrrrmm!
'Greek'
Oh dear, England lost at Rugby. What? Sarcastic? Moi? You know me too well. And though I've been slated for it in the past (and undoubtedly will be again) it seems that my patriotic fervour still steadfastly refuses to spread itself that far.
As everybody knows, one day, William Ellis, a posh fat homosexual, got sick of being crap at football and decided to pick up the ball. A century and a half on, the participatory demographic (it seems to me) remains unaltered.
Though contact is mercifully rare, living in London it's possible to occasionally find that one has strayed on to their manor, and frankly there are few sights less appealing than a pub full of braying Nigels (with their identikit blandly-pretty blonde girlfriends) singing 'Swing Low Sweet Chariot'.
Though I have sometimes proffered a tray full of champagne flutes in their disdainful direction, it's still not clear to me (other than the colour of our passports) what I'm supposed to have in common with these people. Hence, support for their sporting representatives remains elusive. Their England (more's the pity) is not my England.
Paradoxically, my England is their England; they own it - I'm obliged to rent it from them. With the hospitality characteristic of poor folk then, I welcome them into this England (and its incomparably superior sporting spectacle) just so long as they learn a few songs. For 'God Save the Queen' and the aforementioned 'Swing Low' simply won't do.
As for Twickenham, there will always be statistics, for me, more salient than the score. For example:
Percentage of the 150,000 Farepak customers at Saturday's game: almost certainly nought point nought.
Percentage of the handful of executives (involved in the decision to use these customers Christmas Club money to make risky and unwise investments) at Saturday's game: possibly quite high.
As for their Sweet Chariot - let's hope someone cuts the brake cable.
Postscript: It's appropriate that I began this week's column with mention of my Sunday League team, for I've find myself on vicarious tenterhooks (if such a thing is possible) as the Message Board crackles with excitement over the approach of Sunday's big ComeOnBoro.com v Fly Me To The Moon showdown.
Our team also had a media link, in the form of the Secretary's wife - a journalist. As part of a feature she wrote to all the top managers in the country and asked them what advice they would offer our lowly outfit. Many replied, including El Tel, offering assiduous, detailed insights into tactics and motivation etc.
My favourite reply however ran to a mere eleven words. It came from the sadly-disgraced but (by me) much-missed Big Ron, who counseled: 'I would just tell them: go out and bury the opposition.'
You heard the man.
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