Last week I left you with a bit of teaser copy about what FIFA could do to stop the thuggery that the Dutch got up to in the World Cup Final.

Shortly afterwards I received this e-mail from Peter Parkin

It won’t take much for the powers that be to put an end to the world cup final saga and if sin bins were in place we as match officials would not have the problems that we do and a whole load of bureaucracy and red tape.

It would make our job and the FA / Counties...

I love refereeing, I love coaching referees, I love writing about refereeing but I also love the close season. So this is a bit of a call to sit down and write this season’s first newsletter.

I remember when I was on the big leagues it was the same trying to ramp up the training for the up and coming fitness tests. You know you should start training but after 9 months of 2 or 3 matches a week in addition to training sessions it was nice to relax and have a beer.

Who was...

Did anyone see the Open Championship today?

You know that I say golfers and referees are almost the same people. If a golfer puts the ball into the doo-dah he (she) has to get it out.

If a referee puts him (her) self into the doo-dah he (she) has to get him (her) self out of it.

The other thing we have in common is a sense of fair play.

Golfers will not cheat - those who do are shunned by other golfers. There have been court cases over allegations...

Do you know who we saw on Sunday night?

It may surprise you but Howard did something that a lot of us referees fail to do.

I know I managed to cock it up on a number of occasions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEGSOd0jbhg

I'm doing a newsletter this evening but I wanted to talk about the only 3 honourable men on the field last Sunday evening.

When all said and done Howard, Mike and Darren didn't cheat - didn't attempt to cheat and bow to pressure.

That takes courage and I take my hat off to them.

It seems to me that the Dutch players will forever have to hide their faces when the 2010 WC Final is mentioned.

On the biggest game on the planet - they had to admit...