"Sir Alex gave me the hairdryer treatment!" – Peter Walton reveals the life of a Premier League referee
da esoccer bet： Former Premier League referee Peter Walton has revealed to no one’s surprise that Manchester United legend Sir Alex Ferguson was the hardest manager to deal with as a referee.
da cassino online： Peter was a Premier League referee from 2003 until 2012, when he retired from his on-pitch duties to take up the role of general manager of the Professional Referee Organization in North America, which he performed until 2018.
Since then, he has returned to British shores to feature regularly as a pundit and officiating expert on TNT Sport’s football coverage, and you can read our exclusive chat with him below, in partnership with talkSPORT BET.
Who was the toughest manager you had to referee?
“Sir Alex Ferguson. He didn’t win what he wanted by being a shrinking violet. He didn’t keep United at the top of the tree for so many years by being nice to everybody. I’ve received the hairdryer treatment for sure.
“The manager’s office at Old Trafford is next to the referee’s room at Old Trafford and at the end of a game I’d go in there, I’d pop the door open and say cheerio. Normally that would be met with ‘thanks very much, see you next time’ but they played Portsmouth one night and Man United lost two full-backs through injury.
“One was when one of the Neville lads kicked through and caught the studs of an opponent. He got hurt – it was not a foul – the other one was a foul, I gave the foul. After the game, I tapped on the door as I normally do and I went to say ‘cheers, all the best’ and he went absolutely ballistic at me. Apparently, I’d caused the loss of two full-backs and there were a few Anglo-Saxon words in there. Of course, he always had a very short fuse.”
What was the hardest ground to officiate at?
“Thinking of grounds, the hardest one to referee at was Goodison Park. It’s a shame Everton are leaving there but Goodison Park always evoked an atmosphere for me.
“It was quite a feral place for me at times. The whole place would erupt and they would always encourage me if I was having a bad game. It was always a tough one to referee – when I looked at the fixtures and saw I had Everton I thought ‘here we go’.”
What's the toughest refereeing decision you ever made?
“I made a decision that was right but I didn’t agree with it. That was at Goodison. Everton were playing West Ham and West Ham were fighting for their Premier League survival. There was a striker called Freddie Piquionne and I cautioned him earlier in the game for a centre-forward’s challenge, he got nowhere near the ball. He was on a caution and we put that to bed.
“In the second half Everton were winning 1-0 but West Ham made it 1-1. And when Piquionne scored what would be a winning goal for West Ham to make it 2-1, he peeled away and went into the away support that was at Goodison over at the far side and the away support surged forward. In doing so there was a group of young lads at the front of the seating area who weren’t crushed but they nearly were.
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“Freddie raced over to them but unfortunately, it was a safety issue. Referees had been briefed only a month before about clamping down on players creating safety issues for fans and you had to caution them for doing that.
“Freddie came back onto the field with the security and police sorting out the young lads at the front of the crowd and I shook my shoulders and said ‘Freddie you’ve got to go’. He shook my hand and actually said ‘thank you’. It was the right decision in law but it didn’t sit greatly with me.”
