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AS mentioned previously, the role of the Fourth Official was only introduced in 1991. Before that time, there were reserve officials named for major matches but they played no part at all unless the referee or one of his linesmen (as they were then) suffered illness or injury.

A lot of people question the need for Fourth Officials, and to some extent I understand and share their doubts. Do we really need a guy to hold a board up to show the numbers of substitutes and how many minutes are being added on by the referee at the end of each half? Why can't that information be displayed on the big screens at most grounds?

Similarly, does the Fourth Official really have to keep jumping up to enforce the rules of the technical area—that there is only one person from each team standing in his area at any one time, and so on? All that policing the technical areas achieves is to aggravate the managers and fans and make the Fourth Official seem like a busybody. In theory, the Fourth Official is supposed to watch for and report any ‘improper conduct’ by managers and coaches, but so much of that goes on at every game that most is not reported.

I hated being the Fourth Official. You travel up to a hotel the night before the match, yet you know you are not one of the main officials. It's like being the substitute goalkeeper: you get all the kit on but then sit there knowing you don't have a proper part to play. It's very frustrating.

I don't think some other referees were too keen having me as their Fourth Official. It was all right if it was a really big game—say Arsenal against Manchester United—because then the referee concerned would be a top man and would not have a problem with me being there. He would know that I would sort out anything that really needed sorting in the technical area and let him get on with his job.

The problems arose sometimes when, in common with other senior match officials, I was appointed Fourth Official to mentor a young ref. Then the managers would sometimes talk to me instead of him, and that was not helpful. On one occasion, I was Fourth Official to Matt Messias at Derby versus Coventry. Matt was very young and trying out for the Premier League. During the game I tried to encourage him with thumbs-up gestures and positive body language. But one of the Coventry coaches was less impressed than I was and filled in a sub card and handed it to me. It said, ‘Player off: Messias. Player on: Poll’.

When I was refereeing matches, I tried to make good use of the Fourth Official. He changed in the ref's room with me and the assistants, attended all the pre-match briefings, got miked up and so on, and was part of the refereeing team. But I didn't have him warming up with me and the two assistants. That was partly because there was no point and partly because he was more use staying in the refs room. That was where the phone would ring if anyone wanted to contact me about something, like delaying the kick-off because of trouble outside the ground. That was also where he could deal with late administrative stuff, like changes to the team-sheets if a player was injured during the warm-up.

When the time came for me to brief my team, my instructions to the Fourth Official would be, ‘Don't be too pedantic. Don't be too picky. But make sure the managers let the assistant on their side of the pitch get on with his duties without any hassle.’

For me, that was and is the prime value of a Fourth Official: he takes the stick from angry managers instead of the assistant referee, who would otherwise get it in the ear as the nearest available man in black (or green, or yellow).

For matches abroad, I had a big say in who was the Fourth Official. The procedure was that UEFA or FIFA would inform the English FA that I had been appointed for such and such a match, and then the FA would appoint the two assistants and the Fourth Official. The FA knew that we would be away together for three days, and that it would not be a good idea to send a team of officials who didn't get on with each other. The FA knew who I was friendly with and, more importantly, whose company I did not enjoy. In case they were in any doubt, I blackballed a couple by saying, ‘don't put them on trips with me’.

You can't only take your mates though. Going abroad as a Fourth Official is a chance to learn and get experience, so when I was a senior ref I was sometimes asked to take someone on his way up.

On the whole though, I think the Fourth Official function is fraught with difficulties—not least in circumstances such as the Zidane scenario. The choice for Luis Medina Cantalejo in Berlin at the World Cup Final might have been to ignore the letter of the law or ignore a head-butt. That cannot be right.

And consider, once again, the ‘phantom goal’ awarded to Reading at Watford (on 20 September 2008). There was no television monitor in the technical areas that day. The rules had been changed at the start of the season for the Premier League and Football League to stop managers seeing mistakes by referees and immediately confronting them about them.

Watford manager Aidy Boothroyd, standing next to the Fourth Official, saw with his own eyes that the ball had gone nowhere near the goal. The Fourth Official decided, properly according to the Laws, not to say anything to referee Stuart Attwell. Later in the game, however, Boothroyd, who was understandably still incensed about the ‘goal’, said something rude about a throw-in decision and the Fourth Official said he would report him. Boothroyd replied, ‘Oh, you couldn't tell a ref about a goal that wasn't, but you can tell the ref about that all right, can't you?’ The Fourth Official did report Boothroyd, who was sent to the stand by the ref.