Seeing Red by Graham Poll

cards at least and perhaps a couple of reds. On the morning of the match the representative of Sevilla came to me at the ground with a letter which did nothing to make me revise my forecast. The letter was written in English and couched in a very aggressive tone. It said, among other things, that Osasuna had disrupted the first leg by feigning injury and so Sevilla intended to ignore any apparent Osasuna injuries in the second leg. Sevilla would not kick the ball out and would not stop play if an Osasuna player was on the floor, looking injured. The letter asked me to tell Osasuna about Sevilla’s intention to play on. I was sure that if I read that letter out to Osasuna, it would only increase the enmity. Indeed, there might be some genuine injuries sustained before we even kicked off.
    When the meeting with club representatives took place, without planning it in advance, I hit on the perfect thing to say. The Laws of the Game, I explained, made the safety of players the responsibility of the referee, not of the other players. I told the club representatives, truthfully, that in England we had adopted a new policy when players appeared injured. Neither side was expected to kick the ball out. Instead, the referee, and only the referee, decided when to stop play for an injury. I told the meeting that I intended to use that English policy.
    Once the game kicked off, the first time someone went down and stayed down, I gave the free-kick but I stood overthe player on the floor, smiled, offered him my hand for a handshake and pulled him up, still smiling. Players continued to hit the turf as if felled by snipers, but I repeated my performance three or four times: nice smile, handshake, pull him up.
    I also completely discarded the diagonal system of refereeing – which I probably need to explain briefly here. The referee patrols the pitch in roughly a diagonal line. The two assistants patrol opposite halves of their touchline – from the goal-line to the halfway line. The idea is for the referee to keep the ball between him and one of the assistants.
    The method of diagonal patrolling is used throughout football and I used it in most of my 1554 games – but not all of them. I discarded it if I thought I needed to keep closer to incidents and so I abandoned it that night because I was determined to keep on top of every incident. When I blew my whistle and the players looked around, I wanted to be only a few metres away.
    My tactics meant a lot of running as well as a lot of smiling and a lot of shaking hands. I must have looked manic – but the approach worked. Players knew I was right behind them and they knew as well that I was giving fouls when appropriate. They realized I was not letting anyone stay down if he was not hurt, and so they soon stopped writhing about on the floor as if they had been the victims of heinous assaults.
    I was totally on top of that game from start to finish. I let it flow, but I was utterly focused and completely ‘in the zone’ – as sportsmen and women from all sorts of disciplines say. In the entire ninety minutes, neither trainer came on once – not once.
    Luis Fabiano scored for Sevilla from six yards after thirty-seven minutes to make the aggregate score 1–1 and wereached half-time without a single caution. The liaison officer was shocked but delighted. He called it an exceptional first half.
    Dirnei Renato put Sevilla ahead with a clever, cushioned volley after fifty-three minutes, and although there was a tough period in the second half, when I had to take the names of five players in eleven minutes, the game needed those cautions. After I had administered them, it calmed down and flowed again.
    Near the end, I was in one penalty area and the ball was heading for the other. I needed to get up the pitch. I had very little left physically, but I went for it. As I forced my tired limbs into a sprint, I pretended to whip myself, like a jockey urging on an old