Retirement: at least that’s one decision Poll got right Matthew Syed - May 31, 2007 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/article1862693.ece Matthew Syed says Graham Poll was a self-obsessed show-off, but do referees deserve respect from players and fans alike? Give us your thoughts below. Graham Poll, who has revealed the reasons behind his decision to retire from refereeing, is a man beyond parody. The preening, pouting “Thing from Tring” lambasted the FA for failing to back him in a row with Chelsea last year – in fact, an independent panel fined John Terry ￡10,000 for questioning Poll’s integrity after his sending-off against Tottenham Hotspur – and went on to offer the spectacular assertion that the FA’s “failure to act” had let down “the 27,000 men, women and boys who go out to referee each week and who need protection”. 格拉汉姆‧波尔最近披露了他结束裁判生涯的内因﹐他真是个无法再现的神话。这位喜欢一 边以手掠过额发﹐一边噘着嘴把Thing念成Tring的先生抨击FA,认为去年他遭受切尔西攻击 的时候﹐FA没有提供给他足够的支持──事实上﹐由於蒋‧特里质疑当时他给出的第二张黄 牌（对热刺﹐波尔将特里两黄罚下﹐对於第二张黄牌他不同时间给了两个不同的解释）﹐FA 设立了独立审查团并对特里开出了一万英镑的罚单──并且进一步断言说,FA的"不作为"辜 负了"2万7千名每周都要出门执法比赛﹐需要保护的男人﹐女人和小孩"。 How somebody so narcissistic managed to drag himself away from the dressing-room mirror often enough to forge a career as an official is a question for another time. In the meantime, it is worth noting that within hours of Poll delivering his supposedly selfless “revelations”, his agent was issuing a press release hailing the forthcoming publication of an autobiography described as “shocking” and “often unbelievable”. And that’s just the accompanying photograph. 这样一只小天鹅竟然可以如此频繁的从他的穿衣镜前走开﹐去履行身为一名球证的职责﹐他 是怎麽做到的﹖当然﹐这不是本文的重点。另一方面﹐在波尔先生无私的进行真相大"披露 "之後才几个钟头﹐他的经纪人就宣布﹐他据说"震撼人心"和"往往令人难以置信"的自传即 将发行──所以我们有理由揣测波尔先生的无私行为只不过是前期炒作而已。 Poll is arguably the worst referee of recent times, not because of the decisions he made on the pitch (although many were awful) but because of the way he went about them. He was, in my opinion, football’s answer to the show-off who shouts on his mobile phone in a packed commuter carriage. He was the bar bore who confused self-congratulation with conversation. He was the grown-up infant who never learnt to reconcile the id and the ego. In short, he was the wrong sort of chap to let loose on a football pitch with a whistle and cards. Allow me to digress to tell you about Jack Randall, a short, bald intellectual who passed away five years ago and who looked as if he had emerged fully formed from the pages of a Graham Greene novel. His nose was never far from a book, his mind never far from the philosophy of Kant. He spent his spare time travelling the length and breadth of the country umpiring table tennis matches: unpaid, unassuming and generally unheeded. He was the most brilliant umpire I ever met, not simply because of the lucidity of his judgment but because of his pursuit of anonymity. He comprehended and embraced the crushing paradox at the heart of refereeing: you have power over the people who really matter. When he intervened to call a fault he did so reluctantly, aware that he was intruding upon the spectacle that people had come to watch. Poll was the polar opposite. He appeared to have insufficient maturity to give extended thought to the manifold subtleties involved in standing in judgment over one’s fellow man. He seemed too self-obsessed to come to terms with the fact that his lot in life was that of a man who gets an opportunity to tread the boards alongside the matinee idols, but who is never allowed to sing. And so he did the next best thing: he tried to steal their notes. It is an approach he is taking with him into retirement. In his shameless attempt to grab the media spotlight, he has trampled on many of those who protected him when he was at his most vulnerable. Brian Barwick, the chief executive of the FA, the most conspicuous target of his vitriol, phoned Poll to offer encouragement after the World Cup fiasco when he issued three yellow cards to Josip Simunic. Barwick even took the risk of going public with his endorsement. Poll’s pronouncements yesterday demonstrate gracelessness, ingratitude and vanity in equal measure. In one interview he talks about how he “went to the centre circle in Stuttgart after the match [in which he issued three yellow cards to Simunic] to say goodbye, because I almost felt I wouldn’t have a choice in whether I was going to stay or not”. This compulsion to muscle in on somebody else’s glory was also evident after the Coca-Cola Championship play-offs finals at Wembley on Monday, when he went to the centre circle to hold his arms aloft, punch the air and wave to the crowd. Poll’s personal tragedy is that he is oblivious to the fact that nobody was waving back. Black marks June 8 2002, Kashima Italy 1 Croatia 2, World Cup finals, group G Gives 42 fouls, disallows two goals. “Those weren’t division one or division two officials,” Christian Vieri, the Italy striker, fumes. “They were village officials.” April 14 2003, Old Trafford Arsenal 1 Sheffield United 0 FA Cup semi-final Inadvertently runs into and blocks path of Michael Tonge, the United midfield player, allowing Fredrik Ljungberg the freedom to score. June 13 2006, Frankfurt South Korea 2 Togo 1 World Cup finals, group G Sends off Jean-Paul Abalo, of Togo, for second bookable offence. Accidentally flashes red card before raising second yellow. June 22 2006, Stuttgart Croatia 2, Australia 2 World Cup finals, group F Books Josip Simunic, the Croatia defender, three times before dismissing him. Subsequently sent home from Germany. December 27 2006, The Valley Charlton Athletic 2 Fulham 2 Barclays Premiership Penalises Djimi Traore for handball instead of Tomasz Radzinski, the offender. Franck Queudrue scores late equaliser from free kick. Times上的评论﹐原来打波悍将不是史密斯先生一个... 我只翻译了前面两小段﹐後来就懒下来了...大家就将就看吧（不过句子都有够长...） --

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