The Red Card

CONTENT WARNING: Contains slapstick humour.

"Penalty!" shouts Kevin. Almost spilling his pint.

They're in The Footballer's Arms. It's only half-full but it's buzzing. Everyone watching the game. Everyone entranced. Everyone animated. Everyone, that is, except Alex.

"Ah, c'mon ref!" pleads Paolo to the big TV screen at the far end of the room.

Alex, says nothing.

A red-faced man at the next table is on his feet, shouting at the screen. Shouting at the referee who is now in giant close-up. Surrounded by angry Titans in green shirts. They push the ref, crowd him, hassle him.

For Alex, every game of football contains a controversial incident like this. Maybe two or three. The disallowed goal. The obvious penalty. The clear offside that isn't given. And usually the referee gets blamed, or the two assistant referees (the two guys running up and down the touchline carrying flags). Sometimes even "the fourth official" (whoever or whatever that is). Accused of blindness, ignorance, bias, stupidity, baldness, obesity, lack of fitness. You name it.

Alex drains the malty dregs of his pint and gets up.

"My round," he says to his friends. They don't respond. They're still transfixed by the drama playing out on the screen. The pub erupts in groans as the referee, unswayed by the green mob around him, awards a goal kick to the opponents. No penalty. A real anti-climax.  

Alex walks to the bar and waits to catch the eye of the barman. Just above his head on the big screen, a giant goalkeeper in yellow shirt, shorts and socks, restarts the game with an unremarkable pass to one of his defenders. Alex pays the action no attention. He's thinking about a time, years ago when he had refereed a football match.

It was just after he'd left college and started work at his first real job. Laboratory assistant at a teaching hospital in Edinburgh. One of the hospital porters, a fellow named Tommy, managed an amateur football team. Word had got to Tommy that Alex was a half-decent player. So he invited Alex to try out with his team, Inter Portobello, that coming weekend in a friendly match against another local team. Alex accepted Tommy's invitation.

"Excellent! Bring your boots, black shorts and any colour socks you have," said Tommy. He scribbled the address of the football ground on a scrap of paper and handed it to Alex. "See you Saturday around ten thirty."

That Saturday, the bus journey took longer than Alex expected. I'm late! he thought as he rushed through the gates of the football ground. It seemed a decent place to Alex. The pitch was almost flat and mostly covered in grass. The goals had nets. A couple of Portakabins on one side of the pitch served as the home and away dressing rooms. Alex found the Inter boys in the home dressing room.  

"Ah, here he is!" Tommy's face lit up on seeing Alex. "Here's our referee."

"Here's our what?" replied Alex as Tommy started rummaging in a kit bag at his feet. "Referee did you say?"

Tommy pulled out a yellow training bib from the bag. Then rummaged some more and produced a stainless steel whistle on a black braided-nylon cord. He held both items out to Alex who just stood there, reluctant to accept them.

Alex shook his head. "Referee? No way!"

The room went silent. Tommy leaned close to Alex and spoke ominously. "Look Alex, the ref we hired hasn't shown up. So, since you're the new guy. And since you want to join our team.  We're giving you the opportunity to help us out."  

Alex said nothing.

"Look pal, this is amateur football," continued Tommy, getting irritated. "We need a referee. You do want to help the team out, don't you?" He made a sweeping gesture with the whistle towards the Inter players in their ill-fitting blue-and-black striped shirts, black shorts and assorted socks. "You wouldn't want to *let the team down*, would you?"

Alex looked around the room. All eyes were on him. He thought for a moment about doing a runner. Glanced over his shoulder and saw one of the Inter players inching sideways to block his exit. Staying was the only option. Alex reached out and took the bib and whistle.

The game started well enough for Alex. He didn't have much to do. Blew his whistle a couple of times when the ball went out for a throw. For a couple of corners. A few goal kicks. And then the first foul occurred. Just a late tackle really. Nothing malicious. But less than a minute later there came a second foul, and then a third. A fourth. A fifth. All obvious fouls. Casually aggressive late tackles, shoves, and trips.

Players from both teams were guilty. But for whatever reason, the players from the opposing team, Atletico North Bridge, became more and more convinced that Alex was favouring the home team. That he was biased in favour of Inter Portobello. At first, there were smart-aleck comments. Then more aggressive disgruntled shouts of "no way ref!" and "read the rules, man!". Then spittle-flecked, direct-to-his-face accusations of cheating, accompanied by jabbing fingers to his rib cage.

And as the tempers flared, the fouls became more frequent. More reckless. And the reaction to Alex blowing his whistle, more indignant.

The Inter players were getting het up too. As teams tend to do when their opponents seem more interested in kicking them than the ball. So the Inter players started meting out the physical stuff too. It was getting ugly.

Things reached a head after one particularly nasty challenge by an Inter player on an Atletico player. As Alex blew for the free kick, he was surrounded by both sets of players. The Atletico players angrily demanding that Alex send off the offending Inter player for unsportsmanlike behaviour. The equally irate Inter players were miffed at Alex for giving the free kick in the first place. In their eyes it was "a fair challenge", since after all, "football's a man's game".

Alex, grimly stuck to his original decision and rode the storm. The tantrums and shouting eventually subsided and the game continued. Alex checked his watch.  Hang in there! he thought. Almost half-time.

But just a few minutes later, things got even worse. One of the Atletico players scythed down an Inter player with an astonishingly late tackle. Before Alex could even put the whistle to his lips and blow, things exploded. The fouled player jumped back up and started shoving the offending Atletico player, who stood his ground and pushed back. Neck and forehead veins bulged. Chins jutted out aggressively. It was clear to Alex that there was going to be fisticuffs. And just like the professional FIFA referees he'd watched on TV, Alex sprang forward to separate the two warring players.

The Inter player drew back his arm, like a silent movie star telegraphing a punch. His elbow hit the onrushing Alex in the face with the sound of a rubber cannonball hitting the side of a brick outhouse.

Alex staggered back. Stunned. Meanwhile, players from both teams rushed in to pull the two players, who were now wrestling each other, apart. But they only added to the confusion. No one paid any attention to Alex. He touched the side of his face with his fingers. He could feel a lump was already forming. He looked at his fingers. No blood. He checked his teeth with his tongue. No loose teeth. All good.

The melee continued as Alex walked to the side of the pitch. He took off the yellow training bib, neatly folded it, and placed it on the ground next to the corner flag. He placed the steel whistle, with its black braided-nylon cord, neatly on top. By this time, all twenty-two players, the two managers and all the substitutes had gleefully joined in the fracas. But Alex paid no attention to them. He calmly walked to the changing room, retrieved his jacket and his bag, and headed home.

Alex returns to the table, carrying two pints of 80 shilling. He places the dark brown beers, with their perfect creamy heads, down in front of Kevin and Paolo.

They both nod a thanks without taking their eyes off the screen. There's a lull in the footballing action while an unseen video assistant referee checks some infringement or other. The TV cuts to a shot of the stadium's big screen:

CHECKING POSSIBLE RED CARD

DENIAL OF GOAL-SCORING OPPORTUNITY

It cuts back to a group of giant players, this time in blue and white shirts, haranguing the referee. Then cuts in close to show the fear in the referee's eyes.

Alex picks up his jacket. "Sorry guys, I have to go."

Kevin and Paolo both turn round. They looked surprised.

"You're going? But it's only the first half?" asks Paolo. "Going where?"

"I don't know yet," says Alex.