To many people watching football today, the game cannot be
imagined without yellow and red cards. Fans discuss the seriousness of offences
by reference to the colour of card that they warrant; bookmakers offer odds on
who will be the first to see yellow or red in any given match. It may come as
some surprise, then, that the cards system is not even fifty years old.
The system of sanctions in football stretches much further
back than fifty years, to the inception of the game as we know it today. For
any kind of formalised sport to exist at all, there must be rules and an
imposition of punishment for infringement. The ‘mob football’ of the Middle
Ages had few such rules, and shared little with its modern-day descendant other
than the name; unlimited numbers of players from opposing towns sought to
convey a pig’s bladder to the markers at opposite ends of the settlement in
which the game was being played. By some accounts, any method short of murder
and manslaughter was allowable – one can only imagine that Tony Pulis would
have thrived in such an era! It took until the mid-1800s for formal
codification efforts to commence. In 1863, the various attempts were unified
under one code and adopted as the official rules by the newly-created Football
Association: this is generally considered the birth of the modern game.
It is the cards themselves that are a surprisingly recent
addition – it was not until the 1970 World Cup, 107 years after the rules first
spelled out offences that would warrant cautions and sendings-off, that these
coloured cards were introduced in competitive football. The English game did
not adopt the system until six years later. Before this, referees would have to
make their meanings plain to the players through their words and actions alone.
This caused a few problems on the international stage, where officials would
frequently have to resort to exaggerated charades to overcome the language
barrier, but anyone who has witnessed Mike Dean playing an advantage knows that
the art of performative refereeing is very much alive today. For the most part,
the lack of a visual representation of each degree of punishment did not pose
much of an issue.
How, then, did the now-familiar cards end up getting adopted
into the very fabric of the game? As is often the case, controversy was the
catalyst for innovation. The 1966 World Cup is remembered primarily as
England’s only major tournament success, but its legacy is even greater than
that. The team that would go on to be champions came up against Argentina in
the quarter-finals, and two separate incidents sparked a reform that would
change how football was played.
The more high-profile of the two controversies was the
sending-off of Argentinian captain Antonio Rattín. The physical number five had
retained some of the attributes that would undoubtedly have been revered in
players of mob football – to this day he is remembered as a legend at Boca
Juniors for his combative qualities. It may seem unsurprising, therefore, that
referee Rudolf Kreitlein ended up giving him his marching orders. However, the
sending-off was not for a tackle or a fight. In fact, it didn’t appear to be
for anything at all. The post-match report indicated that Rattín had been
removed from the game for “violence of the tongue” towards the referee, but the
German official didn’t speak a word of Spanish! A dirty look had got him
removed from the World Cup quarter-final. Perhaps understandably, the
Argentinian was reluctant to accept his fate. Once it had finally been
successfully communicated to him that Kreitlein had sent him off, with the aid
of head of tournament referees Ken Aston, he refused to go: policemen were
eventually brought on to the pitch to escort him away. Still he would not go
quietly – he sat down on the red carpet exclusively reserved for the Queen, and
as a last act of defiance he wrinkled an English pennant as he was marched
away.
This grabbed the headlines of the day, but in truth it was
the less talked-about incident that truly gave rise to the idea of the cards system.
Rattín did not initially realise he had been sent off, but the message got
through to him eventually – he was evidently far from impressed with it, but
this would have been true even if he had instantly been made aware of his
dismissal. In contrast, the other controversy of the match was not settled
until over thirty years later. Both of the Charlton brothers were playing for
England; Jack was involved in a goalmouth tussle, and Bobby interceded on his
behalf during the ensuing talk with Kreitlein, but the referee gave no
indication that either of them had been cautioned. Certainly, neither of the
two brothers were aware of it until reports in the next day’s newspapers
suggested that both had received bookings: then-manager Alf Ramsey had to
contact FIFA for clarification. It would appear that the response he received
was far from conclusive, as in 1997 the matter was still playing on the mind of
Bobby Charlton. In fairness, he had only ever received one other career
booking, and the referee who gave that to him had since apologised for getting
it wrong – he cannot be blamed for trying to get to the bottom of the only remaining
blemish on an otherwise perfect disciplinary record. Nonetheless, when England
came up against Argentina again in 1998, FIFA took the opportunity to confirm
that they had examined their records at the request of Charlton the previous
year, and found that both brothers had indeed been cautioned by Kreitlein.
Ken Aston, who had watched these incidents unfurl with
horror before being called upon to try and persuade Rattín to leave the field,
did not want to see a repeat. He had been a renowned referee himself, taking
charge of the 1963 FA Cup Final in his final game before retirement. The
previous year, he had also been given the honour of officiating at the opening
game of the 1962 World Cup; he impressed so much that he was handed the task of
presiding over Chile v Italy in a subsequent game. This was not something for
which he was particularly thankful – he later described himself as “acting as
an umpire in military manoeuvres” in the match that came to be known as ‘The
Battle of Santiago’. Prior to the game, reports emerged in Chile that
newspapers in their opponent’s country had been questioning the beauty and
morals of Chilean women: tempers flared high, as both sides treated the
occasion as a battle of honour as much as a football match. Aston broke up
numerous fights, sent off two Italian players and had to work in conjunction
with armed police to ensure that the match reached a conclusion. He was praised
greatly for his handling of a highly volatile situation.
The respect he had garnered within the game was reflected in
his appointment as head of referees at the 1966 tournament – his subsequent
invention would ensure his legacy extended well beyond the end of his career.
The story goes that he was sitting at a set of traffic lights on Kensington
Road, dwelling upon how to avoid incidents such as those he had recently
witnessed, when the idea came to him: yellow for take it easy, red for “stop,
you’re off”. The idea was as simple as
it was brilliant: simultaneously, the issues of the language barrier and the
uncommunicated caution were removed from the game.
Football has always been resistant to change, but even the
governing bodies struggled to find a downside of the concept. FIFA trialled the
concept at the next World Cup in 1970, to great success – the FA dragged their
heels for six further years, but eventually also adopted the system that
football fans around the world now treat as integral to the sport. This,
however, would not prove to be the end of the story. After less than five years
of using the cards, the English authorities felt that red cards had led to an
upswing in “demonstrative referees” sending people off with too much
regularity: the more serious of Aston’s two cards was duly removed from the
domestic game following a decision of the FA Council in January 1981.
Amazingly, red cards were not reintroduced into English football until 1987,
and even then only at the insistence of the International Board – this is why
footage of the first ever sending-off in an FA Cup final, in a clash between
Everton and Manchester United in 1985, shows the referee taking Kevin Moran’s
name and then gesturing him off the field, rather than showing him a red card. The
cards system as we know it, then, has only been around as an essential part of
the game for a little over thirty years.
Ken Aston cannot have known when sitting at those traffic
lights that his idea would permanently change the way the sport he loved was
played. Nor could Antonio Rattín have envisaged that his sit-down protest on
the Queen’s red carpet would give rise to a system that helped bring clarity
and transparency to on-field decisions, reducing the chances of anyone else
being sent off for little more than a dirty look. In football as in life,
progress can be driven in strange and unpredictable ways.
- Follow me on Twitter @JamesMartin013
No comments:
Post a Comment