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Referee Webb blows whistle for five year police break
POLICE sergeant Howard Webb has handed over his stripes. For the time being.
Juggling a busy police career with the demands of top-level refereeing meant there was prospect of dropping the odd ball or two.
So the helmet has gone on the hook for a few years.
The Rotherham referee will now keep order in the Premier League as a full-time referee employed by its governing body rather than face the prospect of keeping order on the streets of Sheffield on a lively Friday night.
"To be honest, I was struggling to do justice to everything," admitted Webb who flies out to Zurich next week to begin his preparation to referee in Euro 2008 which starts a week tomorrow.
"I was having four days away from work through refereeing and coming back to loads of e-mails and playing catch-up.
"I was losing touch and, as a superior, it was my job to be in touch and leading them. It wasn't right.
"I had worked hard to get my stripes and didn't want ot lose them so it was agreed I'd take a career break up to a maximum of five years.
"South Yorkshire Police have been great for me. They have accommodated me part-time for five years and the chief constable sent me a 'good luck' message when the break was made."
Webb acknowledges that certain skills sets needed for the police correlate to refereeing.
"If you turn up at a fight in Fargate, you've got to try and prioritise - who you need to lay hands on, if anyone's injured, do you check on them, all that stuff.," he said.
"Things are happening quickly in front of you - you have to stay calm, analyse lots of information all at once and make decisions as to what's happened, act decisively but be aware of personal safety and watch your back."
Perhaps those skills came in handy when the Arsenal-Chelsea Carling Cup Final he refereed in 2007 blew up right at the end.
"As a ref, you can get the chance of two, big domestic cup finals, and one of mine had ended in what I thought, at the time, was a riot - even the managers were on the pitch trying to calm things down and that was my job," he said.
"I was so massively disappointed that when I got my medal, I said nothing, walked off back into the dressing room and hurled the medal in its box against the wall.
"I then thought 'you daft sod' and picked it up. But the box needs some tape to keep it together!"
Despite his fears it might be held against him, the contrary happened - praise and support from many quarters.
So pleased were the UEFA and FIFA assessors with the way he handled the whole situation, his actions were held up by FIFA as "good practice" and a video was made to be shown to referees bodies across Europe.
"You can do an hour's lecture about it - sometimes I do," he says.
"One or two things could have been done better. Sometimes you get a smell that something might kick off but there was nothing with this.
"Actually, it raised my profile and was a good learning experience and I'd like to think I came out of it on the right side - unlike the medal box!"
BIG DECISIONS TO MAKE
THERE'LL be some big decisions for referees in Euro 2008 and Howard Webb will be waiting for them.
"Every ref wants things to go smoothl," he says.
"You want to be anonymous but if you go into games thinking: 'I don't want any big decisions today' that's when you get controversy because that's when you shy away from those big decisions.
"Of course, some decisions are controversial whichever way you call them but sometimes you have to stand up and make the big ones. It's not being the star of the show - I never want to be that - but sometimes I have to raise my profile.
"To be a referee, to want to be one at any level but particularly this level, you need to be fairly self-confident. Not egotistical and not desiring to be the centre of attention, but be someone prepared to stand up and be counted and make big, unpopular decisions if you have to."
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