Referee Retrospective

Chelsea manager Eddie McCreadie is on the left of the picture and the linesman is John Hazell, an insurance agent from Colchester and in his last match. Both he and referee Reg Robinson did many games in London with geographical restrictions ruling out officials from the London area.

Tony Morrissey is one of the easier referees to identify from that era due to his distinctive appearance - very tall (6'03) with grey, slicked-back hair.

The referee is Ralph Lee of Cheadle, Cheshire. For comparison I've attached a picture of him from 1975. Clive Thomas did referee WBA v Arsenal but a few months earlier in April 1971.

Interesting change of favourite other team by Graham Moseley who had previously stated it was - Manchester United!

The referee is Dennis Pugh, a primary school headteacher from Chester. He resigned from the list a few months later due to work commitments.

Tommy Dawes was a very long-serving referee (1958-1974), based in Norwich for most of his career and Bury St Edmunds just before he retired but originally from Accrington. There is a very memorable image of him from 1971 berating Steve Kember of Crystal Palace.

Maybe they were expecting some gags and anecdotes but a very astute article including on how West Germany built on their 1966 experience so successfully,

Les Hayes was from Doncaster and on the full list from 1972 to 1977. I think he served a full term but just made the list at a later age which wasn't uncommon then.

You're right on both referees, good identification skills, especially with Les Hayes who was only on the list for 5 seasons. Shorter careers on the FL list were far more common back then.

Line-ups for Bobby Charlton's last game for Man United - a 2-1 defeat at Chelsea in April 1973. Referee John Yates (Redditch) was a League ref from 1966 to 1977. A much longer career awaited linesman Lester Shapter who became a supplementary ref the next season and was on the full list 1974 to 1992.

It's not very clear but I think it's the badge for the Association of Football League Referees and Linesmen.

The linesman on the left of the picture is John Callaghan of Liverpool, a FL linesman in his last season (a common English international appointment). I must stress I didn't recognise him but I think this picture had appeared some years ago with him one of the officials named.

Kevin McNally was not just a very young referee on reaching the FL but he also became a linesman very early in 1966. This short article from 1962 when he was refereeing in county football is one of those few cases where someone very young is predicted to reach the professional game and does so.

Pat Partridge wasn't involved in controversy at that Finals (indeed he rarely was) but he did have to deal with the bizarre incident of the Peru keeper - known for his ventures upfield - fouling a Poland player in his own half!

Kevin McNally was a newsagent outside football which was rather appropriate as few referees in the mid / late 1970s generated more headlines than he did!

The linesman on the left of the picture does look similar to Keith Hackett but is Ron Dix of Fareham. He's obscured here but the linesman on the right is Trelford Mills (Barnsley) who became a League ref that year and served for many years.

Roger Kirkpatrick was also very well-known to general football followers in the 70s and he is one of the tiny number to remain so. It's probably fair to say much of that fame was down to his distinctive appearance and personality but he was well-regarded in terms of refereeing ability as well.

A few Southern refs did make it to the North East for League games before the regional restrictions but they would be from the South East or East Anglia, South Wales or the South West would be a huge distance & travelling time, only really viable when full-time refs in the PL were introduced.

Clive Thomas was certainly one of a very small number of referees from that era who could be considered "famous". At Southern grounds he was more of a familiar face but far less seen in the North so it's very likely an appearance at SJP would be remembered even if the game passed without incident.

I'm pretty sure he didn't, at least not in the League. He occasionally did matches in the North before regional restrictions took hold but in the North West or Yorkshire. The North East was too far away for League games but in the Cup - especially for later rounds - distance didn't really matter.

I think his Three Lions badge at that point was for running the line in a Scotland-Portugal friendly. Although the badges were given for taking part in major domestic finals they could also be for international appointments.

David Richardson (Clayton-le-Dale near Blackburn) is the referee.

In March 1980 Kevin Bond scored own goals in consecutive weeks, then scored another at the end of April!

You're right that the lack of video means that all these memories remain intact, not just about supposed refereeing errors but other things that happened in games. A goal that's remembered as "amazing" may have been nothing special. Maybe people need to cling on to these illusions (or delusions).

I think every club has at least one referee who they see as notorious, usually just on the basis of one match, not a series of games. Good performances are forgotten, bad ones (real or imagined) can stick in the mind permanently.

To add to that mix Gordon Kew was born in South Shields but raised in Scotland. He moved to Leeds as that was the home city of his wife (who was the daughter of a Football League referee). Clearly he was very used to moving around!

David Hutchinson was based in Witney in Oxfordshire at that time but started his League line career in Cambridge, his home city. As a League ref he was based in Bourn (Cambridgeshire), Harrogate and then Marcham near Abingdon, a contender for the most travelled FL official!

Football programmes are often very useful to the referee researcher but could occasionally slip up - the referee profiled here is Peter Walters, not Peter Walker. The linesmen Dave Sadler and Harry Smale were both from Barnstaple. This was from December 1975 & the last of Peter Walters' 11 seasons.

Play ended just after this incident and we had the bizarre spectacle of one of the Birmingham players leaving the pitch with the ball stuffed under his shirt! Not sure what the reasoning for that was but it brought a smile to the face!

Northern Irish referee Malcolm Wright (Portadown) watches as the Wales keeper collects the ball in a World Cup Qualifier against England at Wembley in January 1973.