Refereeing chief Howard Webb has claimed he “got taken to the cleaners” when taking charge of an Everton game at Goodison Park. And it was down to the “big characters” in the home side and a “toxic” atmosphere in the stadium.
The Rotherham-born official used to work as a police officer and in 2010 became the first man to referee the Champions League final and World Cup final in the same year – sending off Everton’s John Heitinga, who is now Arne Slot’s assistant at Liverpool in the latter as Spain beat the Netherlands 1-0 after extra-time – but he has previously admitted that he found Goodison the most difficult ground to go to.
The 53-year-old, who is now the technical director of the Professional Game Match Officials Board, the body responsible for refereeing games in English professional football, recalled how he struggled when Everton defeated Bolton Wanderers almost 20 years ago on December 4, 2004.
Kevin Davies put Sam Allardyce’s visitors ahead on 16 minutes but despite a Duncan Ferguson equaliser on the stroke of half-time, Davies restored the Trotters’ lead 10 minutes after the restart.
Everton then drew level through a Thomas Gravesen penalty 15 minutes from the end before David Moyes’ men snatched a dramatic 3-2 win through a Radhi Jaidi own goal five minutes from full-time.
Speaking on The Overlap, Webb said: “I had a really really tough game in my second season. I only did eight games in my first year in the Premier League. I refereed Everton vs Bolton in my second season and got taken to the cleaners that day by some really big characters, people like Duncan Ferguson and Tommy Gravesen, and David Weir.
“I started refereeing the game okay the first 20 minutes. I’m giving decisions, but the atmosphere was really toxic in the stadium, and maybe I missed a couple of things I don’t know or gave a couple of fouls that might have been seen as soft, but you know, 20 minutes in it’s really getting on top of me.
“And I started to sort of like hide after that because I started to let things go a little bit. My threshold for giving a foul sort like went too high because time I was blowing, I was getting loads of negative feedback, so I kind of like started to bottle it a little bit in that moment, which I hate to say.
“But you know, I was a pretty new inexperienced Premier League ref with some really experienced players.
“Gary Speed (Bolton’s former Everton midfielder) said to me about 40 minutes in, he said you’re starting to let us down he said you’re not doing your job. But he was spot-on. I mean he was absolutely right.”
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