Exclusive interview: Premier League assistant referee Andrew Garratt

Andy Garratt is a Premier League assistant referee who has helped to officiate in a number of high profile games, including the 2012 FA Cup Final. Deputy sports editor Tom Ward sat down with him to discuss the pressures of refereeing and the temperament required to carry out the role effectively.

T: How did you get into this line of work?

A: My Dad was a referee, just local park’s pitches. When I was a lad I used to go with him on a Sunday morning to watch him. A lot of the times there was no linesman so I just used to pick up the flag. It used to be the subs who weren’t good enough to play who used to run the line.

If they’ve got someone there who wanted to do it they used to let them. Even though I was nine or ten they just used to let me do it and I sort of got the bug for it then. It was only very low level.

I continued playing throughout and because I knew the rules of the game better than other people I got into a lot of trouble with referees.

I was often arguing with referees until I realised if you can’t beat them, join them and that’s how it started really.

T: Do you think players respect the work you do?

A: Players haven’t got a great deal of respect to be honest. At the end of the day they want to win so they’ll take every advantage they can to make their team win. So if that means influencing the referees one way or the other they’ll do it.

Although we’ve got a RESPECT campaign in professional football which has actually gone down to children’s football which includes a certain level of conduct i.e. shaking hands before the game etc, the higher up you get, the less respect you actually see.

With the lower divisions you are either involved with younger players who can be quite timid or older players ending their careers and they tend to be a little less volatile.

A lot of it comes from the management as well. If you have volatile managers it tends to rub off on the players. The more animated managers will tend to have more animated players whereas more relaxed managers will have the more relaxed teams, it does tend to work out like that.

Obviously if there are teams going for a championship you will have more players having a pop because there is a lot more at stake.

I have to be careful what I’m saying because I’m still active next year so I’ll get in trouble if I name people.

T: What dirt could you spread?

A: I could tell a few stories.

T: Are you subject to certain pressures as a linesman as well then?

A: Absolutely I’m not allowed to bet, you have to conduct yourself in a professional way. Because there’s so much attention on Premier League football now we have to adhere to certain rules: we are only allowed to see our fixtures five days before they take place.

They do try and protect us in this country. We have protocol we have to follow and contracts we have to sign and in return we get protection.

T: So how do referees operate with linesmen?

A: We operate in teams. Initially linesmen were grouped with one referee but if that referee wasn’t available then we wouldn’t get a game so now teams are made up of four referees and eight assistants. On a match day in the Premier League there will be one referee working with two assistants. You’re not allowed to go and officiate if you support that team.

T: How does the team system work? If you make a bad decision are you kicked off the team?

A: Not necessarily, no. There’s a myth that says that happens but it doesn’t. For me I see it as like falling off a bike. The best thing you can do when falling off a bike is get back on it straight away. What they tend to do nowadays is that unless it’s a really bad decision they don’t knock you off the next game and if you do it again they will use it as a coaching tool.

We analyse every game. The assessments from these games will be given to you within 2 days and you can go back and look at your mistakes and discuss that with a personal coach that we all have.

Every game is analysed with a fine tooth comb. Every single decision that we make including throw-ins and corners is analysed using a tool called Prozone which tells us how many decisions we got right in a game, how many decisions we got wrong and we’ll be given a percentage at the end of every season.

It also all depends on where an incident happens on the pitch. It’s all about the consequence of that decision. If you give a corner that then leads to a goal then you will receive a far more negative score than if you incorrectly call a throw in on the halfway line.

T: There’s a lot of chance involved in that.

A: A lot of it is down to luck but we are constantly analysing our performance. Last year out of all the decisions I’ve made last season, which is about 50 or 60 decisions a game for 33 games, I got a 97% accuracy out of all of those decisions. And that was only good enough to see me ninth on the list for the country, which just shows you what sort of job these people are doing.

T: That’s incredible.

A: That’s why the Premier League’s officials are the best in the world.

T: When you think of the amount of stick linesmen get, that statistic is quite astonishing…

A: The media will only remember when you got it wrong.

The statistic that’s most interesting is that we made 98.5% of offside decisions correctly last season yet it is that 1.5% that the media remembers.

T: What’s the biggest call that you got right?

A: That’s really easy that is. It was Andy Carroll’s header against Chelsea in the FA Cup Final in 2012. It was 2-1 at the time (which ended up being the final score). Eight minutes before the final whistle, Carroll headed it and Petr Cech pushed it what looked liked from behind the goal. I was in a good position but I wasn’t sure so I couldn’t give it.

Carroll’s first goal scored could’ve been offside as well but I called that right. I had two major decisions to make in that second half and I got them right. They actually replayed that dozens of times on MOTD afterwards and still no one could tell whether it had gone over the line or not. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that I got the call from the referees box to tell me I’d got it right. My wife has since told me she felt physically sick at the time.

T: How do you make that decision?

A: It’s a gut reaction. I contemplated the spin of the ball and realised I couldn’t give it.

And then of course you start to get the Liverpool players coming after you. Luis Suarez was chasing after me, shouting at me in another language!

The media will only remember when you got it wrong.The statistic that’s most interesting is that we made 98.5% of offside decisions correctly last season yet it is that 1.5% that the media remembers

T: What’s the biggest call you’ve got wrong?

A: Oh yeah, I remember that one as well. Again this goes back to the cup final. Because you can only do the cup final once and I knew I had a chance of the cup final because I’d had a good season. It was Arsenal vs. Hull in 2009, and I allowed a goal to stand that was marginally offside. Hull went mad. It was an Arsenal winner, William Gallas scored. They showed the replay on the screen in the stadium, all the Hull players were looking at it and they descended on me. It was about five minutes from the end of the game and I was just distraught.

The referee in the changing rooms after the game was the current manager of referees, Mike Riley. All I remember was the Hull assistant manager coming into the dressing room saying we’d cost us the final, and me just sitting there with a towel over my head absolutely devastated.

I thought I’d lost the chance of the cup final. It took me probably 12 months to get over that.

It’s every referee’s dream to do the FA Cup Final at Wembley because every football fan watches it. I thought I’d lost it completely.

So then I had to wait for three years until I was eventually given the chance, and it’s ironic that my best decision was actually in the cup final.

T: It’s a nice redemption story really isn’t it.

A: Definitely, that’s a story I tell to young referees.

The dividing lines are very marginal, but that’s what makes the Premier League assistants stand out from the other assistants.

There are some pundits that will bash referees and they’re usually the ones that talk nonsense about everything else

T: What’s your personal take on football getting more technological, with goal line technology etc?

A: Well obviously that’s being implemented next season. If that had been at the cup final it would’ve taken all the pressure away from me. But then again it would’ve taken the glory as well so I’m glad it wasn’t! Adaptability is one of the key requirements for linesmen and this is the latest change we have to adapt to. Every single game brings something new to the table. But it sounds as if it’s going to be really good. We have to embrace it because it’s what everyone’s wanted for years.

T: Have you got a broader view with regards to technology in football?

A: I think you’ve got to move with the times. It’s improved cricket and tennis so it was only a matter of time before football had it. I still think you can’t take away the ‘human error’ element of football. Football is there for goals to be scored and if it enhances the experience of goals being scored then that is a good thing.

As for how far can we go with technology, my personal opinion is that this is enough. I think that goal line technology is enough, because otherwise you’re going to do me out of a job!

On a serious note a lot of those maybe decisions and a lot of that heartbreak is why we’re all here. If it wasn’t for those decisions people would have nothing to talk about on a Monday morning. Football is a game of opinions and if you take the opinions away from it then it’s going to be very boring.

T: Do you think that as a whole referees are treated fairly in the media?:

A: I think it’s got better. What the media do is hone in on the mistakes you make as I said before. The news is all about bad stories.

I feel someone like Gary Neville has improved referee perception no end since he started on Sky. Where he can he’ll always find a way to back up referees and its people like him that talk a lot of sense.

I feel personally it depends which pundit you have and which era they were in. There are some pundits that will bash referees and they’re usually the ones that talk nonsense about everything else. Good pundits see both sides of the argument.

T: How much do you buy into media phenomena such as ‘Fergie Time’?

A: You don’t do it. It doesn’t exist. When you’re coming through and refereeing on parks pitches it was sometimes the case that you didn’t want to give a decision against the team of thugs. I was assaulted three times on parks pitches.

You don’t see that a lot now though. There’s a lot more infrastructure in place to stop that happening.

The actual perception of Fergie time, of getting those extra couple of minutes, is a misconception. The referee’s remit is to be impartial at all times. Plus things like that would come out in our assessments. It doesn’t happen.

A lot of people have a misconception as well in that the number we show at the end of a game is only the minimum amount of time we have to play for added time.

T: The only other thing was if you had any amusing stories to tell?

A: There was a game at Manchester United when I got kicked by Phil Bardsley. He went to kick the ball but missed and hit my shin. It hurt for weeks.

There was another one again against Manchester United, and ironically against Hull again. It’s actually had quite a lot of hits on Youtube, it’s called ‘linesman gets knocked out’.

The Hull player came down the line and he put his arm up to protect himself but he knocked me straight down a three foot slope. As I went down I hit my head on the wall. That was quite bizarre.

Later I did Gary Neville’s testimonial. After the game Ferguson invited us into his office. He was signing autographs for the various players that had come, as well as the other linesmen.

He turned to me and said: “I’ve seen some tackles, but this guy took a tackle I’ve never seen the likes of before.” He was talking about the Man Utd-Hull game. They say he remembers everything but I couldn’t believe he’d remembered that.