On this day in 1951, Good Friday as it happened, promotion-chasing Norwich City travelled to Newport County for a game in the Third Division (South). The Canaries had won three of their last four and drawn the other, and were two points behind Nottingham Forest in the chase for the single promotion spot, while County were in ordinary form and marooned in the middest of mid-table. But in this match form, logic and, in the end, common decency went out the window.
If there was something wild in the air when the game kicked off, it was only the wind. Matches in Nottingham, Bristol and Chester were among those postponed as gales and rain lashed the country. A major bicycle race at Herne Hill was washed out, and race meetings at Towcester and Southwell, scheduled for the following day, were abandoned. Elsewhere in Wales there was flooding – “five rivers in South Caernarvonshire overflowed and hundreds of acres were inundated,” reported the Western Mail – and six inches of snow fell on high ground, “making it impossible for motorists to travel from Ffestiniog to Bala”.
But at Somerton Park the referee, AH Blythe, examined the pitch and announced the game could be played. And played it was, if mainly by Newport. By the 70th minute the home side led 5-1, the visitors battered by the wind and beaten by their opponents. On a muddy and sodden pitch the leather ball became increasingly heavy, and conditions never eased. Foulkes, Norwich’s centre-half, went to head a speeding ball and was knocked unconscious, eventually being carried off the pitch, and a few moments later the referee decided to call the game off.
“If Mr Blythe had not started the game we would not have been surprised,” said FL Watkins, the Newport secretary. “Conditions improved rather than deteriorated, however, and we had no warning that Mr Blythe was about to call it off.” Norman Low, the Norwich manager, had spent a decade at Newport as a player. “The referee should not have abandoned the game when Newport were leading 5-1,” he said. “He should have made his decision earlier.”
Perhaps Blythe had other reasons for wanting the game to finish early: upon reaching the dressing room he collapsed with exhaustion and required medical attention, taking half an hour to recover. “If Mr Blythe did not feel well,” the Newport chairman, Lieutenant-Colonel Harold John, sniffed, “he should have retired and handed over control to one of the linesmen.” Newport’s manager, Fred Stansfield, called the abandonment “a scandal”; the Norwich chairman, J Henley, preferred “tragedy”.
As Blythe lay in his dressing-room in semi-consciousness, some 2,000 people gathered around the building, booing and jeering. “The conditions were getting worse and that is why I abandoned the game,” he later insisted. “In my opinion further play was impossible.”
So, increasingly, was crowd control. Eventually police advised the official to leave the ground in disguise. He donned the uniform of the St John Ambulance and slipped into a police car, in which he was taken to the railway station. The Football League insisted, despite inevitable protestations from Newport, that the game had to be replayed, but did concede to the home side’s request for a different official. “With the best intentions in the world and taking all possible precautions we might find it difficult to keep control of the crowd,” said Watkins of Blythe’s possible return. It ended 1-1.
Though Blythe is not the only referee to have been barricaded into his dressing room after a match by irate supporters, the Guardian has only found two other occasions when they have had to don a disguise in order to escape (plus one, played in Sunderland in 1902, where the referee tried to leave in a policeman’s hat but “presented a most comical appearance” and was instantly rumbled). Both happened, like this one, towards the end of the season – and both games were played in Wales.
The first came in May 1923, when Llanelly played Swansea’s reserves in the final of the West Wales Senior Cup. The Swans won 1-0 after extra time, with Llanelly missing a late chance to equalise from the penalty spot. “The game was played in the best of spirit between the players,” wrote the Western Mail, “but it became evident in the second half that the rulings of the referee were not to the liking of a portion of the crowd on the cheap side of the field.” When the final whistle eventually went, “the crowd climbed the railings and rushed across the playing pitch towards the referee”. He fled to the dressing rooms, while outside chaos reigned.
“There were several bouts of fisticuffs between some of the excited partisans of both sides, and the scene was one of pandemonium,” the Western Mail’s report continued. “The crowd surged around the entrance to the dressing room and an attempt was made to storm the main entrance gates. This, however, failed because the precaution had been taken to strengthen them with heavy baulks of timber.
“Darkness was now coming on and, taking advantage of this, Mr Simpson donned the uniform of one of the constables, crossed the field unnoticed, passed through one of the smaller entrances and reached the police station. Here he resumed his civilian attire and subsequently motored to Swansea.”
The second came in April 1967, after a 1-1 draw between Wrexham and Southport which featured a wildly controversial equaliser for the away side. “Five players – Schofield, Turner and Oldfield of Wrexham, and Andrews and Redrobe of Southport – were involved in a goalmouth scramble,” reported the Liverpool Echo. “Schofield emerged from the ruck with the ball but the referee awarded Southport an indirect free kick just inside the penalty area. His reason for doing so was a complete mystery. Full marks though to Southport for cashing in on the gift. With the Wrexham defence standing around arguing with Mr Darlington they took the kick and Peat slammed the ball into the back of the net.”
Hundreds of fans invaded the pitch at the game’s conclusion and seemed disinclined to leave without communicating their displeasure to the referee, Mr Darlington, in person. But as they congregated around the main entrance, Darlington was spirited out of a side door in a police uniform.
Perhaps our referees could have learned a lesson from Livion Bonelli, a former referee from Argentina. According to a story in the March 1961 edition of FA News Bonelli had come up with a novel method to avoid ever having to leave the ground in disguise: refereeing in one. “He takes the field with a wig and a small false beard,” they reported. Apparently he could whisk this off in seconds at the merest scent of trouble, and become instantly unrecognisable. “Already,” they wrote, “this subterfuge has got him out of trouble twice.”
