by Graham Poll
So, in May 2005, when I headed for Portugal, Julia, Mum, Dad and Graham Barber came with me. Mike Tingey and Glenn Turner were the assistants; Steve Bennett was the fourth official. It was particularly good having Benno with us because he and I could reminisce about the fact that we did one of the Isthmian League Cup Finals together years earlier, with me as ref and him as fourth official.
By a quirk, the UEFA Cup Final was at the home stadium of one of the competing teams, Sporting Lisbon. They were playing CSKA Moscow, and although Russian teams were not followed by huge crowds away from home, the fact that the match was at the José Avalade Stadium ensured that it was a 45,000 sell-out.
The Portuguese fans, however, did not have a great evening. Their team took the lead, through Roderigo, but Brazilian midfielder Daniel Carvalho set up three goals for Moscow, scored by Alexei Berezutskiy, Yuri Zhirkov, and Vágner Love.
Neither did I have a great summer after that Final. During the 2004/05 season I had been getting pains in one leg which I thought were a hamstring problem. They were actually referred pain from back damage and the real problem was in the sacroiliac joints, which are on both sides of the base of the spine. The sacroiliac joints are part of the pelvic girdle – I know, because I have had to become an expert on them. In the summer of 2005 I had to have injections in the base of my spine, without analgesic. Ever since then, I have needed to have the sacroiliac joints ‘cracked open’ every few weeks by Gary Lewin, the Arsenal and England physiotherapist.
After the injections, which were the week after the UEFA Cup Final, I set about losing some weight and getting super fit. I had been fit enough to take charge of a European Final but I wanted to be fitter still – because I hoped that the 2005/06 season would culminate in my going to the World Cup. But because I was recovering from the injections in my back, I could not do ‘impact work’ – anything that involved my legs thumping down onto the ground. I still worked my plums off for six weeks, however. I went swimming and cycling and used a step machine. Because I was doing exercises with which I was not familiar, I could not gauge how hard I should work, and so, to be on the safe side, I did too much. I used to cycle as fast as I could up a hill near my home, freewheel back down and then pedal like fury back up again – and again and again. When I got home, my legs were wobbly and I needed to sit down to stop myself fainting with exhaustion.
For the swimming, I went to Hemel Hempstead sports centre, but I did not actually swim. I put buoyancy aids around my waist and ‘ran’ across the deep end as fast as I could. I waded across, upright in the water, with my arms pumping and my legs going up and down some distance from the bottom of the pool. Some would say that it was not the first time in my life I had been out of my depth. Some would also say that when I refereed I looked as if I had a buoyancy aid around my waist. I certainly looked very odd to the other pool users when I turned up nearly every day at about 11am. Two lanes were roped off for ‘serious swimmers’ and I restricted myself to the other lanes. So I only disturbed the ‘leisure swimmers’, most of whom were elderly ladies at the time of day I went, but I imagine I did look fairly disturbing.
I had to do this tough exercise work through the entire summer. I did it because I was driven by the knowledge that the following summer I hoped to be at the World Cup.
The first impact work I was able to do was at the referees’ pre-season training week at an army base in Aldershot. I was really looking forward to that training camp because I would be with my mates and because the physical workouts would help my fitness campaign. Yet that week at Aldershot brought the biggest act of betrayal I have ever suffered.
We stayed in a nearby hotel and went to and from the camp each day by minibus. We trained exceptionally hard from Monday to Thursday – really, really hard. The last exercise on the Thursday was a ‘combat relay’ which was the most exhausting thing any of us had ever experienced. We were split into three teams and had to compete in three consecutive events. The first involved a trailer with a wheel off. We had to lift the trailer without jacks, secure the wheel and then push and pull this thing 200 metres. The second element of the race involved lifting barrels and other heavy lumps of kit over obstacles using planks and ropes and goodness knows what. Finally, we had to run carrying a telegraph pole. We did this for three miles over a cross-country course which included wading through water.
The Army trainers were so pleased with our attitude and our efforts over four gruelling days that they cancelled the Friday morning session and invited us to a barbecue in the sergeants’ mess on the Thursday evening. We were told we could and should let our hair down. The Select Group officials were joined by three referees’ managers – Joe Guest, Keren Barratt, and Ron Groves – and we all had a good time.
I had a very good time. Together with a few of the others, plus the army officer who had supervised the training programme, I took part in a ‘port challenge’. By the end of the evening, I was seriously inebriated. In fact I was as inebriated as a newt.
In my defence, I had been on a diet and lost a stone during the summer. That, combined with severe dehydration from the intense training, probably meant that I could not hold my drink as well as I imagined. Another mitigating factor was that I was on private property, away from the eyes of the public, and knew I would be taken back to the hotel by minibus. I could also argue that drinking with colleagues after a tough few days is a worthwhile bonding exercise.
I could say a lot of things – but I did have too much to drink and I was blotto. I wasn’t shouting, or aggressive or anything. I was ill. Uriah Rennie looked after me and guided me back to my hotel room but I was sick near reception and along one of the corridors – and then in a bucket by the side of my bed continually throughout the night.
The next morning, before anyone said anything to me, I got rid of the contents of the bucket, cleaned up the room completely and went down to reception to talk to the duty manager. I apologized for being ill the night before and said that I hoped I had not caused any problems or embarrassed anyone. I offered to pay for any cleaning bills. He said there had been no complaints and that, as far as he and his staff were concerned, there was no problem.
I got home eventually and telephoned Keith Hackett to apologize. He too said there was nothing for which to apologize. And so I went off on a family holiday the next day. I have felt better, but I thought the episode was over.
However, within hours of our arrival in Sardinia, Keith telephoned to say that he had received an anonymous, misspelled email. Copies had been sent to his secretary Kelly Wright, to Graham Noakes (Professional Games Match Officials Limited company secretary) and to Joe Guest, the Football Association’s referees’ officer. The email made allegations about my behaviour at Aldershot and, said Keith, the story was going to be in a newspaper.
My family deserved a holiday, but I had to spend it dealing with telephone calls about this story. Julia had always insisted that we had two weeks in the summer away from football, where I was just Graham and Dad and not a referee, but there was no escaping from football or from my refereeing life on that holiday. And I even felt I needed to take care where I put the family rubbish. I did not want a photographer taking a picture of empty wine bottles – that’s the stage things had reached.
The email which wrecked the Poll family holiday had been sent from [email protected] and so it was clear that someone – one of my colleagues, one of my apparent friends – had gone to the trouble of setting up an untraceable hotmail account to remain anonymous. The email did not name me. It merely talked about ‘Someone who lives in Tring and will be England’s World Cup referee in Germany 2006’ – which narrowed it down to a group of one.
The email alleged that I had consumed ‘at least one and a half bottles of port plus a number of Jack Daniels and Coke’. If that were true, I would have needed an ambulance, not a minibus. The email made a series of other allegations about my behaviour, some of which were partially true. It said, ‘If it was anyone else they would be
dismissed but as he is your favourite he wont [sic] be sacked. He is representing England at the World Cup – is this the type of person we want representing us at the finals?’
The ‘red top’ tabloid newspaper which carried the story did so under a headline saying, ‘Poll in booze shame’. The report exaggerated the account of my behaviour even more than the email had done.
Who sent the email? Who sold the story to the newspaper? I don’t think they were the same person. I think the emailer was one of my colleagues who was present at Aldershot and I think he also told the person who sold the story to the newspaper. The email was sent to all the pertinent people and to their correct email addresses, so it was certainly done with inside knowledge. The informant could not go to the World Cup himself, but clearly wanted to damage my chances.
The Premier League press office announced that an investigation was being conducted ‘in the wake of allegations concerning Graham Poll’ but the truth was that the Premier League were really trying to discover the identity of the person or persons who sent the email. There was no investigation into my behaviour, because everyone knew what had happened and that I had apologized.
I made a special effort to get to Staverton after a European game for the first get-together of 2005/06, stood up in the meeting room in front of everyone and apologized. I said I was sorry about my behaviour and for any embarrassment I had caused. I said, ‘I apologize to all but one of you.’ I added, ‘The person who sent the email should take it home and show his wife or child and tell them what he has done. But he won’t do that of course, just as he didn’t have the balls to put his name on his email.’
Peter Heard, the chairman of Colchester United, who was also chairman of Professional Group Match Officials Limited, stood up next. He said that I had made a mistake and admitted it, but that the email and leak to the press were divisive and seriously harmful to the entire group. He said that if he found out who sent the email, that person would be sacked. He then said, ‘I want these people to leave the room’ and started listing names. Mine was the first announced, because it was a fair bet that I had not sent the email. The other names on the list were people that I had eliminated – people that I knew would not do that to me – and men the Premier League had eliminated.
Eventually, only four people were left in the room, although they were not all ‘suspects’. Of course, nobody owned up. The sneak just left the others smeared with the taint of suspicion.
The referees all think they know who it was and, months later, one of the refs said he thought three or four of us should have given the sneak a thumping to drum home the message that there should be a code of loyalty. I don’t agree with the idea of a punishment beating – tempting though it is – but I do think there should be a code of loyalty. I could use this book to tell tales about lots of the refs – about drinking, womanizing, gambling – but I won’t because those guys were colleagues of mine.
The Aldershot episode signalled an end for me: the end of my being able to relax at Staverton. After Aldershot, I was always on my guard in front of the other referees. The old days of a group of blokes sharing a common purpose and common experiences were gone. The ‘good old days’ had started to disappear when the Red Wine Club disbanded because Paul Durkin, Steve Dunn and Graham Barber retired. The days of being relaxed and trusting were gone for ever once that email was sent.
The board of Professional Group Match Officials Limited felt they needed to show the public that referees could not get drunk without being disciplined, so they announced that I was suspended for two games and even named the games. I believed that was wrong, because referees are taken off matches all the time without the public knowing. This time, they made a point of announcing publicly that I was being punished and that handed a victory to the emailer.
To soften the blow, I was allowed to choose the dates of my suspension. I selected weeks which enabled us to take another family holiday – the one in Sardinia had been wrecked by all the phone calls about Aldershot – and so I served my suspension in Jamaica. We stayed with Peter Prendergast, my mate the FIFA referee. As I was not banned by the Football Association, I refereed a Jamaican Premier League match. I took charge of a fixture between Tivoli Gardens and Rivoli, at a stadium known locally as The Hole, and had a wonderful time. The Jamaican Gleaner newspaper said the game was ‘superbly controlled by British referee Graham Poll’.
Although the Aldershot episode was a vicious act of betrayal, I stopped feeling bitter about the sad emailer because the jealousy which ate away at him so much led to my having a lot of fun in the Caribbean.
There was a postscript to this episode when I started the 2005/06 season by refereeing Everton against Manchester United. In the tunnel, Roy Keane gave me what I think you would call ‘an old-fashioned look’ and said, ‘If you can’t take it, don’t drink it.’
I said, ‘Well, if anyone should know Roy, you should.’
Then he said, ‘It said in the paper that you jumped on a car but didn’t damage it. It must have been a f***ing Hummer, because you would have squashed anything else.’
Wayne Rooney asked, ‘What happened, Pollie?’
I said, ‘I got pissed.’
He just chuckled but seemed disappointed that there was not some more outrageous story. He said, ‘Was that all?’ Yep, that was all.
Then Phil Neville said, ‘They only have a go at good players and it is the same with referees.’
So, although I do regret getting drunk at Aldershot, it did not damage my standing with footballers and the 2005/06 domestic season started well for me and continued to go well. That entire season was really always about the World Cup, however. Every match, every week, was a step closer to Germany. Every appointment I was given was an opportunity to impress – or to let myself down.
In the year 2000, when I learned that I was going to that year’s European Championships, Graham Barber said to me, ‘Pollie, there is now only one person who can stop you achieving what you want to in football. You have reached a level, and gained a level of recognition, which means that only one person can stop you now. That person is you.’
Now that we all know what happened in Germany, that sounds like an ominous warning, but that was not how Barbs meant it in 2000. He meant that my future was in my own hands. It was up to me to grasp every opportunity. So, throughout the 2005/06 season I was striving to seize the chance of going to the world’s biggest football event.
Early in the previous season, FIFA had put me on their short list of forty-four and asked me to nominate three assistants, from whom two would go with me to the World Cup if I was selected. For the first time, teams of officials from the same country would officiate at World Cup matches. I chose Mike Tingey, Glenn Turner and Phil Sharp.
To prepare us for the World Cup, I had two of those three with me as assistants for nearly every domestic appointment but the most striking difference that season was the number of international games I was given. In a normal season, I would do eight or nine. In 2005/06 I did seventeen.
That was not a coincidence, of course. FIFA were appraising my performances and an early indication that they thought well of me came when Pierluigi Collina retired a year early. He had signed a deal to advertise Opel cars and the Italian FA thought that was a problem because Opel sponsored AC Milan. So Pierluigi stopped refereeing and I was given one of his fixtures: a World Cup qualifier between Spain and Serbia. Me! Taking over from Pierluigi!
The ultimate accolade for me, however, was to be given Bahrain against Uzbekistan. That might look like a surprising fixture of which to be so proud, but the circumstances were unique. The two teams were drawn together in the two-legged Asian Zone World Cup qualifying play-off. The first leg was played in Tashkent and Uzbekistan were leading 1–0 when they were awarded a penalty. It was converted by Server Djeparov, but the Japanese referee, Toshimitsu Yoshida, disallowed the goal because an Uzbek player had encroached into the area. The ref should have ordered the kick to be retaken. Inst
ead, he gave Bahrain an indirect free-kick.
After the match, Uzbekistan lodged a complaint and eventually FIFA’s World Cup organizing committee decided that the first leg would be replayed in its entirety. A Swiss referee was named for the first leg and there was symbolism in the appointment, because FIFA are based in Switzerland and the Swiss are famous for their neutrality.
Then FIFA asked me to take charge of the second leg – a match that they were desperate should not go wrong in any way. Again, I think there was symbolism involved. Just as Switzerland is the home of FIFA, so England is seen around the world as the home of football and English referees are considered incorruptible and beyond reproach. Well, they are seen that way outside the UK.
On the morning of my match, FIFA telephoned me five times to go through details. They were desperate to get everything absolutely right. I felt that to be selected for a World Cup qualifying play-off, outside Europe, and one which was so vitally important to FIFA, was a huge vote of confidence in G Poll (England).
The international matches kept coming and the season continued to surge towards a crescendo. In November I was given another World Cup qualification play-off match, between the Czech Republic and Norway. It went fantastically well and then I was told I was going to the World Club Championships in Japan at the turn of the year.
But before I went to Japan, there was a big disappointment. I refereed Manchester United against Chelsea on 6 November and when we got back to the hotel afterwards Mike Tingey said he had a fitness problem. Now, we all knew that the FIFA fitness test was going to be extremely rigorous. We also knew that if any member of a national ‘team’ of officials failed the fitness test, the entire team would be barred from the World Cup. In other words, if an assistant failed, then the ref would also be thrown out.
Therefore, with the help of Matt Weston, the Premier League’s sports scientist, I set up a mock fitness test in Nottingham and made it as demanding as the FIFA trial. But in Manchester after that match at Old Trafford, Mike said to me that he had a virus which was sapping his strength and that he doubted he would be able to pass my test.