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CHAPTER TWO

Beckham Calling

The first telephone call I received when I arrived home from the World Cup was from David Beckham.

My wife, Julia, picked me up from Heathrow airport on her own, without our three children. Neither of us wanted pictures of the kids in the newspapers. She thought, as well, that I would need a bit of time alone with her, a bit of support, before being strong in front of our two daughters and our son.

Then, about an hour after I had arrived back, at last, to my home in Tring, my mobile rang. I did not want to talk to anyone but I answered it and a voice said, ‘Graham? It’s David. David Beckham. Becks.’

I thought it was a joker or a hoaxer. But he said, ‘Remember I got that shirt for your daughter, Gemma?’

So I knew it was him. It was the England captain. He was in a hotel in Gelsenkirchen and the next day he was going to lead his country in a World Cup quarter-final. Yet he had taken time to telephone me. I had already received one message of support from him. The England squad had watched my own World Cup implode and several had sent messages to me via another referee who visited their base camp. I was told that Beckham, the captain, had made a special point of saying, ‘Tell him to keep his chin up.’

Now Beckham was on the telephone; a man and a father who could empathize with me and who wanted to reach out in friendship to me and my family. He knew all about making a mistake at a World Cup – and more than anyone about being vilified for it. People in England had hanged effigies of Beckham after he was sent off in 1998 against Argentina.

I had played a small part in helping him after 1998, by encouraging him during the Community Shield match which began the next season. He was only twenty-three then. Now, in 2006, Beckham was such a global mega-celebrity that when he phoned me, I was as excited as a star-struck kid.

I had been there, done that and got all the refereeing shirts. I was blasé about celebs. And at that moment, I didn’t care about much at all, because I was so crushed by Stuttgart. Yet when Beckham phoned I fumbled with the buttons, trying to put the mobile on ‘speaker’ so that Julia could hear. I did not manage to find the right buttons. In any case, what the England captain said was a personal message for me.

He told me not to let it get me down. He told me it would pass. He asked if there was anything he could do.

What a man.

Friends and family had helped me when I was in the black cave of my abject despair in Germany. Thinking about the precious people in my life had provided the first pin-pricks of light. Now, back in England, Beckham’s humanity gave me real inspiration.

A lot of good people also helped persuade me to keep going. The saying is that ‘you learn who your friends are’ and that is true. But you also learn that some people you barely know are decent as well. I remember collecting my son, Harry, from school one day in the season that followed the World Cup, when Burnley manager Steve Cotterill telephoned. He said, ‘I hear you’re thinking about packing it in, Pollie. Don’t do it.’ I had only refereed Cotterill’s team once and yet he had made the effort to find my number and contact me. Gestures like that meant a lot, and so did the support of Keith Hackett, the man in charge of England’s professional referees, who said to me, pointedly, ‘Tell me why you should give up?’

So I kept going and the first match I refereed after the World Cup was a friendly between Tring Athletic and Bedmond Social. I had promised my local club that I would do it and I did not want to let them down. There were only about fifty spectators and I could not help thinking, as I warmed up, ‘This is my 1501st match. If things had gone differently, match number 1501 might have been the World Cup Final.’

During the game, one of the players hacked somebody down but, because it was a friendly, I didn’t book him. I said, ‘I’ll tell you what, mate – in the season that would have been a yellow.’

He replied, ‘And two more and I would have been off.’

It was the first joke made to my face about Stuttgart. I managed a wan smile. I felt no antagonism at all towards a player but, in that moment, I saw a future of endless similar jokes.

The next day I refereed another friendly – between Chelsea and Celtic at Stamford Bridge. Uriah Rennie became unavailable and they asked me. It went well enough and on the Friday I went to Chelsea’s training ground to talk to the players about new interpretations of the Laws. José Mourinho, the Chelsea manager, had asked for me. That too, went very well. Everything was sweet.

But then came the first competitive match: Saturday, 12 August 2006 – Football League, Colchester United versus Barnsley. I could not face it.

The plan was to ease me back in. The Football League season kicked off before the Premiership and so it seemed a good idea for me to start at Layer Road, Colchester. But I was not even ready for that. I pulled over and sat in the car in a lay-by on the A12, with the radio off, alone with my thoughts. They were all negative thoughts. For the first time, in a career that had taken me from Division Five of the North Herts League to two World Cups, I did not think I could fulfil an appointment.

But of course I had to and of course I did.

Colchester had been promoted to the top division of the Football League for the first time in their history. Their ground held only 6,000 and there were just 4,249 present for their second home game of the season, the Barnsley match. Yet I knew there would be a big media presence.

Peter Drury of ITV had already telephoned me to ask if I would do a pre-match interview with Robbie Earle. Peter is a good friend and I had admired Robbie when he was a player and had grown to like him as a man. But I declined the invitation to talk to the nation. I had made up my mind that an interview I had given in Germany would be my last public word for a year at least.

An ITV crew was lying in wait as I got to the ground and a camera was trained on me for every step of my walk from the car to the dressing room. Robbie Earle asked for ‘just one comment on the record’ but I said ‘No’ again. Later I ambled out into the middle for the pitch inspection, faking total confidence. The camera followed me again.

In the press box, at the modest occasion of a Football League game, were some big-name, big-hitting newspaper writers: the columnists and opinion-formers. Most of them had formed their own opinion about me years before. They thought I hogged the limelight. But I really did not want any publicity from them, particularly on that day.

When I went out to warm-up I braced myself. At best, I expected merciless mickey-taking from spectators. At worst, I feared scorn and derision. What I received was applause and some encouraging remarks from spectators. I have never been more delighted about the English trait of rallying round someone who has suffered. As the local football paper, The Green Un, remarked, ‘Rarely has a referee been so popular.’

Of course there was banter. In one area of one stand, a group of supporters had pieces of yellow card with the number three written on them by the same pen and in the same handwriting. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble. Perhaps it was a coincidence that an ITV camera was stationed in that part of the ground. Perhaps.

The game kicked off. Eventually and inevitably I had to take a player’s name. Out came my yellow card and I heard the chant that was to provide backing music for my season: ‘Two more … he only needs two more.’

That time the joke brought a genuine smile to my face and I thought, ‘You can cope with this, Pollie.’

So I was up and running. Now what I hoped for was six months of … nothing. No headlines and no controversy. I wanted the only reference to me to be the one at the bottom of reports, under the teams, where it said, ‘Referee: G. Poll (Herts)’.

A week after the Colchester game, the Premiership season kicked off and I took charge of Arsenal’s first match at the stunning new Emirates Stadium, against Aston Villa. It passed without incident and I was less of a story for the media than I had been the week before.

Fulham’s match against Sheffield United at Craven Cottage was my 300th Premier League fixture, and the next time the Select Group of referees gathered together, there was a little presentation to mark what was a significant milestone. However, in my frail state of mind, I took it as a sign that my race was almost run. I knew I would not reach 400. I wasn’t even sure of reaching 350. So instead of celebrating passing the 300 mark, I just thought, ‘That is your last milestone, Pollie.’

The matches kept coming and I was successfully avoiding headlines. I refereed the Merseyside derby at Goodison, which Everton won 3–0. I took charge when Arsenal won 1–0 at Old Trafford. I was back at Old Trafford when Manchester United beat Liverpool 2–0. They all went well; high-profile matches with a low-profile Pollie. Excellent.

I had a European Champions League match involving Real Madrid. Beckham made a point of coming to see me in my dressing room and, again, wishing me well. More encouragement. More positive thoughts.

I took charge of Chelsea’s home game against Aston Villa and should have sent off Chelsea’s Claude Makelele just before the end. But the referee’s assessor did not dock me any points for it. All was going swimmingly.

I was scheduled to referee Tottenham versus Chelsea. It was a Sunday afternoon game, which would be televised live, on 5 November. Inevitably, Sky TV’s pre-publicity asked, ‘Will there be fireworks on Bonfire Day?’ They obviously hoped the answer would be ‘Yes’. I was desperate for a ‘No’. Sky got their wish.