YES, BOBBY CHARLTON WAS BOOKED!

But GILES METCALFE reveals that Bobby Charlton WAS booked during the 1966 World Cup Finals

There are a number of notable players who never got booked or sent off in their careers, including Tommy Lawton, Sir Stanley Matthews, Sir Tom Finney, Billy Wright and Jimmy Dickinson and they played in the days when football was a full-on contact sport and challenges that would see them sent for an early bath these days were entirely within the rules.

Alongside them there were players who were gentlemen off the field but hard men on it. They took it from the cloggers of the day, but could dish it out, too. One such player, remarkable in a number of ways, was Dixie Dean of whom the official Everton website says, “he was renown for his sportsmanship as well as his burgeoning talent, he was never once booked or dismissed – despite the kind of provocation which once saw him lose a testicle in a match.”

Bill 'Dixie' Dean

Dixie Dean was the pride of Everton FC and the highest goal scorer in English League history – 18 in 16 games for England, 383 in 433 for Everton, including 60 for the Toffees in the 1927-28 season alone, a record that has lasted for more than 70 years.

Bill Dean got the nickname ‘Dixie’ from his dark skin and thick, black, curly hair – Britain in the 1930s was a very different place with a very different cultural landscape – and Dean hated the epithet that dogged him throughout his playing career. Dean and Everton were playing at White Hart Lane in 1932 when Everton won a throw in and Bill jogged over to take it. As he picked the ball up someone in the crowd shouted ‘Wait ‘till after the game, then we'll get you, you n****r b*****d!’.

The shout came from the packed Spurs terracing, but the crowd parted as a nearby policeman made his way into the crowd to arrest the culprit. Dean stopped him and said “No officer, I’ll deal with this.”

Dean then went on to the terracing, fixed eyes on the man and landed a solid punch, knocking him out! Spurs fans cheered as Dean made his way back onto the pitch, the policeman shook his hand, and Bill proceeded to take the throw in as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Dean was hard and overcame injuries on and off the field that would have ended lesser men’s careers. He fractured his skull and his cheekbone, and broke his jaw in two places in a motorcycle accident in 1926.The doctors who treated him considered it unlikely that he would survive, and told him he would never play football again, but they badly underestimated him.

Dean had lost one of his testicles at the age of 17 in a horror tackle while playing for Tranmere Rovers. Some sources say that he was playing against Rochdale, others say Altrincham, but the studs up challenge caused him a particularly nasty scrotal trauma. When a team-mate attempted to administer to the damaged area, Dean famously shouted: “Don’t rub ‘em, count ‘em! ”The count came up one short.

Twenty years on and Dean walked into a Liverpool pub, sat down at the bar and someone sent him over a pint, not an unusual occurrence for Bill.

He looked at the man, who was somehow familiar... Dean later recounted:

“He sent me a pint across the bar. I couldn’t quite place the face for a time, but then I did.”

It was the man who had cost Dean his testicle and Dean was mightily offended by the token gesture of buying him a pint.

“I waited for him outside,” Dean said, “and thumped him. They took him to hospital.”

The curious case of Bobby and Jackie Charlton

Bobby Charlton never once lost his selfcontrol on the pitch. Throughout his career, he was never sent-off and his one and only league booking was subsequently rescinded when the referee apologised to him.

Both Bobby and his brother Jackie were apparently booked by the German referee, Rudolf Kreitlein, in the 1966 World Cup quarter-final against Argentina – Jackie for some pushing and shoving during a goalmouth tussle, and Bobby for dissent when he intervened on his brother’s behalf. But FIFA only confirmed this after 1999.

Contemporaneous newspaper accounts reported that both Charltons had been booked, but the West German referee had not given any public indication that this had happened. England manager Alf Ramsey had to ask FIFA for clarification, and FIFA are supposed to have confirmed the bookings. Jackie Charlton apparently called the Press office, where the head of World Cup Referees Ken Aston was based, in order to confirm the information that he had read in the papers that Kreitlein had booked him.

However, to this day, the official match summary appearing on the FIFA website does not mention that the Charltons were booked; although it does list the caution and sending off of the Argentina captain, Antonio Rattin, for “insulting” the referee, even though Kreitlein couldn’t understand a word of Spanish!

When England met Argentina at the 1998 World Cup Final tournament, FIFA revealed that an examination of its records, conducted the year previ- ously at Bobby Charlton’s request, showed that both Charltons had indeed been cautioned in the 1966 match.

That caution was the only one Bobby received in his 106-match England career. The episode serves as a warning that records of player discipline prior to the advent of yellow and red cards may not be complete and 100 per cent accurate.

It was that uncertainty about the bookings given to the Charlton brothers that led Aston, a former top international referee, to develop the red and yellow cards system, where the cards would be shown to the offending player and everyone watching to avoid confusion.

Aston, driving from Wembley Stadium to FA Headquarters at Lancaster Gate, watched a set of traffic lights on Kensington High Street changing colour and got the idea of a yellow (amber) card for caution and a red card to signal expulsion.

This simple but genius visual solution would get around any language barrier and clarify to players and spectators alike that the offender had been cautioned or sent off.

Aston, a true innovator, also came up with, and helped to introduce, the practice of naming a substitute ref who could take over in the event of the original ref being unable to continue for any reason.

This evolved into the practice of having a designated fourth official. He also successfully proposed that the exact pressure of the ball used should be specified in the Laws of the Game. In 1974, he introduced the number board for substitutes so that players could easily understand who was being substituted.

Mario Kempes

1978 World Cup winner Mario Kempes was never booked or sent off when playing for Argentina, which, for an Argentinian is quite an amazing feat.

He played for Argentina 43 times and scored 20 goals, representing his country in three World Cups (1974, 1978 and 1982). He was the leading goalscorer in the 1978 tournament, with six, two of which were in the final against the Netherlands. His second goal, in the 105th minute, was the 3-1 game winner in extra time.

More notoriously, however, in the 1978 World Cup, Kempes stopped a goal-bound effort with his hand during a second round match against Poland. Nowadays, under FIFA’s Laws, he would have received a straight red for “denying the opposing team a goal or an obvious goalscoring opportunity by deliberately handling the ball”. As it was, he merely conceded a penalty, thus maintaining his unblemished international conduct record.

Gary Lineker

Gary Lineker was never booked nor sent off during his England international career, English league appearances and time in La Liga. He received his sole booking while playing for Japanese side Nagoya Grampus Eight at the tail-end of his professional football career.