HACKETT’S STILL SO CARD HAPPY
FORMER REFEREE HAS FOUND CHURCH
KEITH Hackett enjoyed a glittering refereeing career, but he never lost touch with his Non-League roots.
Whether it was Football League, Premier League or Northern Premier League, the Sheffield-born whistler treated them all the same.
Now 76, Hackett is president of Northern Counties East Premier Division outfit Penistone Church. It’s taken him full circle as he used to referee the South Yorkshire club when he was starting out in the 1960s.
Indeed, Hackett was grateful when the club wrote a letter to the FA in praise of him, which helped his career. In addition, his grandchildren have played for the Church youth teams.
Looking back on his early days as a referee, he told The NLP: “I guess I used to do about 100 games a season.
“I’d do Wednesday afternoons, Wednesday nights, Saturdays and a couple of games on Sundays.
“I was always very enthusiastic about refereeing and enjoyed local park football, so much so that even when I later became a referee in the professional game, I still continued to referee local football. Local football and Non-League got me to where I was.”
It was a long apprenticeship of 12 years before he got his chance in the Football League, initially as a linesman, but he wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“At grass-roots level you learned your craft,” he recalled.
“On a Sunday morning, there’d be the odd spectator you could hear trying to put you off your game.
“Then you might get a few guys who had literally fallen out of the pub after spending all night there. You’d have to control them and still get through a game and enjoy it.
“I always went into a game with a view that 22 players went on and I hoped to always have 22 players coming off.
“I was prepared to have a bit of banter, to talk to the players. If they thought I had made mistakes, I was happy to explain and discuss them after the game. It created a very solid foundation for a referee.”
And Hackett will always have a soft spot for the Northern Premier League.
Learning curve
He said: “I was one of the first officials on the league when it was formed (in 1968).
“Going over the hill into Lancashire, you were suddenly coming up against players who were getting paid for the first time.
“Not only were they over-enthusiastic at times, they would tell you in no uncertain manner if you made mistakes and the crowd would be on top of you as well.
“That was all part of the learning curve to maintain concentration, not to be fooled by some of the players, always have high levels of integrity and try to perform to your best. Sometimes people would say to me ‘come on, Keith, it’s not a cup final’, but, for me, every game was a cup final.
“When I started going to clubs like Altrincham, Northwich Victoria, Mossley, Kendal, South Liverpool, suddenly the atmosphere would change.
“I thought that was a terrific grounding for when I eventually got on to the Football League.”