Alan Wilkie
Encyclopedia
Alan B. Wilkie is an English
former football
referee, who officiated in the Football League
and the Premier League, and for UEFA
. He was born in Denton Burn
, Newcastle upon Tyne
, but now lives in Chester-le-Street
, County Durham
. His other occupation during his refereeing career was as a Telecommunication
s electrical engineer
, and he now works for the Football Association
as a region
al manager
for referees in North East England
.
, and went on to referee in that league a year later. In 1984 he was appointed to the list of linesmen for the Football League
, then became a supplementary referee for that league in 1985. He was further promoted to the full Football League list in 1988. His first match after this promotion was in the old Football League Third Division
on August 27, 1988, the game between Mansfield Town
and Northampton Town
, which finished 1-1.†
In September 1987 he had been given duties as linesman for a UEFA Cup
match in Dundee
, and in 1991 was selected to run the line for Keith Hackett
in the European Cup
semi-final first leg at the Stade Vélodrome
between Marseille
and Spartak Moscow
. This finished 3-1, with Marseille progressing to the Final after the second leg. Wilkie would step up to handle his first European game as referee in the Anglo-Italian Cup
tie between Ancona
and Charlton
in November 1993.†
He was included in the list of Premier League referees towards the end of the 1992-93 season
, handling his first game in that competition (and sending off his first Premiership player, the away side's Tony Cascarino
) on March 24, 1993, when Leeds United
drew 1-1 at home to Chelsea
at Elland Road
.
He was notably the referee during the match between Crystal Palace
and Manchester United
at Selhurst Park
on January 25, 1995, when Eric Cantona
of United performed a kung fu-style two-footed kick towards a group of spectators as he was leaving the field following his sending off for deliberately kicking Palace's Richard Shaw
four minutes into the second half of the game. According to The Guardian
, the senior police officer at the match, Chief Superintendent
Terry Collins, said Cantona would be "interviewed by police during the next 48 hours". He added: "I've never seen anything like it in my life...There could have been a riot." The Football Association told The Guardian: "It is our responsibility to ensure that actions that damage the game are punished severely. The FA will live up to that responsibility." That they did, and Cantona received an eight-month ban from all football activities. However, referee Wilkie had no idea at all about what had gone on, as he was talking to United's Andy Cole at the time: "It was only in the dressing room that one of the assistants told me what he (Cantona) had done."
At the end of that season, on May 6, 1995, Wilkie found it necessary to report the entire Norwich City
team, including its substitutes, after a "mass protest" following the award of a penalty to Leeds United in the 80th minute of a match which would determine whether City were relegated from the Premier League or not. If successful, the spot kick would mean that a draw was likely, not enough for Norwich to stay up. In the event, Leeds scored a second goal on 90 minutes to send the 'Canaries' down. Wilkie was quoted in The Independent
following the game. "All the Norwich team will be reported, I won't be isolating any one player," he said. "That would be impossible because they were all around me, even the reserve goalkeeper." Gary Megson
, the Norwich manager at the time, said: "Leeds did not beat us today, the referee did."
On February 27, 2000, Wilkie stepped out for what should have been the most prestigious domestic appointment of his career, the Football League Cup
Final
between Leicester City
and Tranmere Rovers
at Wembley. However, with just over an hour played, he suffered a calf muscle injury
and had to be replaced by Phil Richards, the fourth official on that day. From that point, the two major decisions required of Richards and his assistant, Wendy Toms
, were the disallowing of a goal for Tranmere in the 13th minute by David Kelly
(a former Leicester player) due to offside, and the dismissal of Clint Hill
of Tranmere in the 64th minute for a tackle from behind on Emile Heskey
. The match finished 2-1 to Leicester.
As well as being the first Premier League referee to handle 100 games in that competition, Wilkie took charge of 10 European games and a total of 456 League matches. He retired from refereeing in the year 2000 after his final Premiership match, the game between Manchester United and Spurs
at Old Trafford on May 6, 2000, when the home side won 3-1.
currently employed as Top referee Instructor for Japan Football Association working in Tokyo
In October 2003, he was part of a team conducting a "workshop for Senior Referees" in Port of Spain
, Trinidad & Tobago
, on behalf of CONCACAF
(The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football), and in conjunction with the English FA.
fan, and his other hobbies and interests include music
, crossword
s and driving
. He worked for British Telecom
as an electrical engineer for thirty years, combining that with refereeing, until taking up his present post with the FA.
In 2002, Wilkie published his autobiography, "One Night at the Palace: A Referee's Story", co-written with George Miller.
Print
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
former football
Football (soccer)
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball...
referee, who officiated in the Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...
and the Premier League, and for UEFA
UEFA
The Union of European Football Associations , almost always referred to by its acronym UEFA is the administrative and controlling body for European association football, futsal and beach soccer....
. He was born in Denton Burn
Denton Burn
Denton Burn is an area situated to the west of the city centre of Newcastle upon Tyne in England, United Kingdom. It is officially designated a suburb of the city, where it is linked to Carlisle by the A69 and A1 roads...
, Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
, but now lives in Chester-le-Street
Chester-le-Street
Chester-le-Street is a town in County Durham, England. It has a history going back to Roman times when it was called Concangis. The town is located south of Newcastle upon Tyne and west of Sunderland on the River Wear...
, County Durham
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
. His other occupation during his refereeing career was as a Telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
s electrical engineer
Electrical engineering
Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
, and he now works for the Football Association
The Football Association
The Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of football in England, and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...
as a region
Region
Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...
al manager
Management
Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively...
for referees in North East England
North East England
North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...
.
Career
Wilkie became a Class 3 referee in 1977, at the age of 26,† when a serious knee injury meant him having to give up playing football in local leagues. In 1981† he was selected as a linesman for the Northern LeagueNorthern League (football)
The Northern League is a football league in North East England for semi-professional and amateur teams. Having been founded in 1889, it is the oldest surviving football league in the world after the Football League....
, and went on to referee in that league a year later. In 1984 he was appointed to the list of linesmen for the Football League
The Football League
The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...
, then became a supplementary referee for that league in 1985. He was further promoted to the full Football League list in 1988. His first match after this promotion was in the old Football League Third Division
Football League Third Division
The Football League Third Division was the 3 tier of English Football from 1920 until 1992 when after the formation of the Football Association Premier League saw the league renamed The Football League Division Two...
on August 27, 1988, the game between Mansfield Town
Mansfield Town F.C.
Mansfield Town Football Club is an English football club from the former mining town of Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. The club was formed in 1897 as Mansfield Wesleyans and changed its name to Mansfield Wesley in 1906 before settling on Mansfield Town in 1910...
and Northampton Town
Northampton Town F.C.
Northampton Town Football Club are an English professional football club based in Northampton, Northamptonshire. They currently play in Football League Two, the lowest league division, after being relegated from League One on the last day of the 2008–09 season...
, which finished 1-1.†
In September 1987 he had been given duties as linesman for a UEFA Cup
UEFA Cup
The UEFA Europa League is an annual association football cup competition organised by UEFA since 1971 for eligible European football clubs. It is the second most prestigious European club football contest after the UEFA Champions League...
match in Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...
, and in 1991 was selected to run the line for Keith Hackett
Keith Hackett
Keith Stuart Hackett is an English former football referee, who began refereeing in local leagues in the Sheffield, Yorkshire, area in 1960...
in the European Cup
European Cup 1990-91
The 1990–91 season of the European Cup football club tournament was won for the first time by Red Star Belgrade on penalties in the final against Marseille. This was only the second time that an Eastern European side had won the competition, after Steaua Bucureşti of Romania...
semi-final first leg at the Stade Vélodrome
Stade Vélodrome
The Stade Vélodrome is a football stadium in Marseille, France. It is home to the Olympique de Marseille football club of Ligue 1, and was a venue in the 1998 FIFA World Cup and the 2007 Rugby World Cup. It is the largest club-football ground in France, with a capacity of 60,031 spectators,...
between Marseille
Olympique de Marseille
Olympique de Marseille is a French association football club based in Marseille. Founded in 1899, the club plays in Ligue 1 and have spent most of its history in the top tier of French football. Marseille have been French champions nine times and have won the Coupe de France a record ten times. In...
and Spartak Moscow
FC Spartak Moscow
FC Spartak Moscow is a Russian football club from Moscow. Having won 12 Soviet championships and 9 of 19 Russian championships they are one of the country's most successful clubs. They have also won the Soviet Cup 10 times and the Russian Cup 3 times...
. This finished 3-1, with Marseille progressing to the Final after the second leg. Wilkie would step up to handle his first European game as referee in the Anglo-Italian Cup
Anglo-Italian Cup
The Anglo-Italian Cup is a defunct European football competition that was played intermittently between 1970 and 1996 between clubs from England and Italy. Founded by Gigi Peronace in 1970, following the success of the Anglo-Italian League Cup, it was played as a professional tournament until 1973...
tie between Ancona
A.C. Ancona
Associazione Calcio Ancona was a professional Italian football club, based in Ancona, Marche. It was founded in 1905 as Unione Sportiva Anconitana, changing its name to Ancona Calcio 1905 in 1981 and being refounded in 2004 with its last denomination....
and Charlton
Charlton Athletic F.C.
Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, in the London Borough of Greenwich. They compete in Football League One, the third tier of English football. The club was founded on 9 June 1905, when a number of youth clubs in the southeast London area,...
in November 1993.†
He was included in the list of Premier League referees towards the end of the 1992-93 season
1992-93 in English football
The 1992–1993 season was the 113th season of competitive football in England.-Overview:This season saw the birth of the FA Premier League. This meant a break-up of the 104-year-old Football League that had operated until then with four divisions....
, handling his first game in that competition (and sending off his first Premiership player, the away side's Tony Cascarino
Tony Cascarino
Anthony Guy 'Tony' Cascarino is an former association football player who played as a forward for various British and French clubs and internationally for the Republic of Ireland national team, with whom he competed in the 1988 European Football Championship and two World Cups in 1990 and...
) on March 24, 1993, when Leeds United
Leeds United A.F.C.
Leeds United Association Football Club are an English professional association football club based in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, who play in the Football League Championship, the second tier of the English football league system...
drew 1-1 at home to Chelsea
Chelsea F.C.
Chelsea Football Club are an English football club based in West London. Founded in 1905, they play in the Premier League and have spent most of their history in the top tier of English football. Chelsea have been English champions four times, FA Cup winners six times and League Cup winners four...
at Elland Road
Elland Road
Elland Road is an all-seater football stadium in Beeston, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It has been the permanent residence of Leeds United A.F.C...
.
He was notably the referee during the match between Crystal Palace
Crystal Palace F.C.
Crystal Palace Football Club are an English Football league club based in South Norwood, London. The team plays its home matches at Selhurst Park, where they have been based since 1924. The club currently competes in the second tier of English Football, The Championship.Crystal Palace was formed in...
and Manchester United
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
at Selhurst Park
Selhurst Park
Selhurst Park is an English football stadium located in the London suburb of South Norwood in the Borough of Croydon. It is the current home ground of Crystal Palace Football Club. Its present capacity is 26,309.-History:...
on January 25, 1995, when Eric Cantona
Eric Cantona
Eric Daniel Pierre Cantona is a French actor and former French international footballer. He played for Auxerre, Martigues, Marseille, Bordeaux, Montpellier, Nîmes and Leeds United before ending his professional footballing career at Manchester United, where he won four Premier League titles in...
of United performed a kung fu-style two-footed kick towards a group of spectators as he was leaving the field following his sending off for deliberately kicking Palace's Richard Shaw
Richard Shaw (footballer)
Richard Shaw is an English former professional football player, and currently a coach for Millwall....
four minutes into the second half of the game. According to The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, the senior police officer at the match, Chief Superintendent
Chief Superintendent
Chief superintendent is a senior rank in police forces organised on the British model.- United Kingdom :In the British police, a chief superintendent is senior to a superintendent and junior to an assistant chief constable .The highest rank below Chief Officer level, chief...
Terry Collins, said Cantona would be "interviewed by police during the next 48 hours". He added: "I've never seen anything like it in my life...There could have been a riot." The Football Association told The Guardian: "It is our responsibility to ensure that actions that damage the game are punished severely. The FA will live up to that responsibility." That they did, and Cantona received an eight-month ban from all football activities. However, referee Wilkie had no idea at all about what had gone on, as he was talking to United's Andy Cole at the time: "It was only in the dressing room that one of the assistants told me what he (Cantona) had done."
At the end of that season, on May 6, 1995, Wilkie found it necessary to report the entire Norwich City
Norwich City F.C.
Norwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...
team, including its substitutes, after a "mass protest" following the award of a penalty to Leeds United in the 80th minute of a match which would determine whether City were relegated from the Premier League or not. If successful, the spot kick would mean that a draw was likely, not enough for Norwich to stay up. In the event, Leeds scored a second goal on 90 minutes to send the 'Canaries' down. Wilkie was quoted in The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
following the game. "All the Norwich team will be reported, I won't be isolating any one player," he said. "That would be impossible because they were all around me, even the reserve goalkeeper." Gary Megson
Gary Megson
Gary John Megson is an English former football player and is currently manager of Sheffield Wednesday.He has previously managed Norwich City, Blackpool, Stockport County, Stoke City, West Bromwich Albion, Nottingham Forest, Leicester City and Bolton Wanderers...
, the Norwich manager at the time, said: "Leeds did not beat us today, the referee did."
On February 27, 2000, Wilkie stepped out for what should have been the most prestigious domestic appointment of his career, the Football League Cup
Football League Cup
The Football League Cup, commonly known as the League Cup or, from current sponsorship, the Carling Cup, is an English association football competition. Like the FA Cup, it is played on a knockout basis...
Final
Final (competition)
The final of a competition is the match or round in which the winner of the entire event is decided.In sports competitions following a knockout system, where only two individuals or teams compete in each match, the final is usually played between the winners of two semi-finals...
between Leicester City
Leicester City F.C.
Leicester City Football Club , also known as The Foxes, is an English professional football club based at the King Power Stadium in Leicester...
and Tranmere Rovers
Tranmere Rovers F.C.
Tranmere Rovers Football Club are an English team based in Birkenhead, Wirral. The club currently compete in League One, the third tier of the English football league system...
at Wembley. However, with just over an hour played, he suffered a calf muscle injury
Injury
-By cause:*Traumatic injury, a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident*Other injuries from external physical causes, such as radiation injury, burn injury or frostbite*Injury from infection...
and had to be replaced by Phil Richards, the fourth official on that day. From that point, the two major decisions required of Richards and his assistant, Wendy Toms
Wendy Toms
Wendy Toms is an English football referee from Broadstone, Poole, Dorset, who has officiated in the Football League and then the Premier League, both as assistant referee. She was the first female ever to fulfil such roles at those levels. She also served for FIFA on the women's international list...
, were the disallowing of a goal for Tranmere in the 13th minute by David Kelly
David Kelly (footballer)
David Thomas Kelly is a retired footballer and former assistant manager of Nottingham Forest. As a child, Kelly suffered from Perthes Disease, but recovered to forge a long and successful career in professional football.-Playing career:Kelly turned out for Walsall, West Ham United, Leicester City,...
(a former Leicester player) due to offside, and the dismissal of Clint Hill
Clint Hill
Clinton J. Hill is a former United States Secret Service agent who was in the presidential motorcade during the assassination of John F. Kennedy. After Kennedy was shot, Hill ran from the car immediately behind the presidential limousine and leapt onto the back of it, holding on while the car...
of Tranmere in the 64th minute for a tackle from behind on Emile Heskey
Emile Heskey
Emile William Ivanhoe Heskey is an English footballer who plays for Aston Villa as a striker.Born in Leicester, Heskey started his career with hometown club Leicester City after progressing through their youth system, making his first team debut in 1995...
. The match finished 2-1 to Leicester.
As well as being the first Premier League referee to handle 100 games in that competition, Wilkie took charge of 10 European games and a total of 456 League matches. He retired from refereeing in the year 2000 after his final Premiership match, the game between Manchester United and Spurs
Tottenham Hotspur F.C.
Tottenham Hotspur Football Club , commonly referred to as Spurs, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, north London. The club's home stadium is White Hart Lane....
at Old Trafford on May 6, 2000, when the home side won 3-1.
Retirement
Since finishing as an on-field official, Wilkie has fulfilled the role of Regional Refereeing Manager for the North East of England, being employed by The Football Association. He also acts as a match delegate for the Football League and the Premier League, overseeing all aspects of the match and the venue he is appointed to.currently employed as Top referee Instructor for Japan Football Association working in Tokyo
In October 2003, he was part of a team conducting a "workshop for Senior Referees" in Port of Spain
Port of Spain
Port of Spain, also written as Port-of-Spain, is the capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the country's third-largest municipality, after San Fernando and Chaguanas. The city has a municipal population of 49,031 , a metropolitan population of 128,026 and a transient daily population...
, Trinidad & Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...
, on behalf of CONCACAF
CONCACAF
The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football is the continental governing body for association football in North America, Central America and the Caribbean...
(The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football), and in conjunction with the English FA.
Life outside football
Wilkie is married to Margaret, and has two sons. He is self-admittedly a Newcastle UnitedNewcastle United F.C.
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End, and has played at its current home ground, St James' Park, since the merger...
fan, and his other hobbies and interests include music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
, crossword
Crossword
A crossword is a word puzzle that normally takes the form of a square or rectangular grid of white and shaded squares. The goal is to fill the white squares with letters, forming words or phrases, by solving clues which lead to the answers. In languages that are written left-to-right, the answer...
s and driving
Driving pleasure
Driving pleasure is a feeling of enjoyment derived from operating a motor vehicle. Factors known to contribute to driving pleasure include responsiveness of the vehicle to driver manipulation of the controls, which means that the vehicle obeys and executes driver's commands faithfully.In the...
. He worked for British Telecom
BT Group
BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...
as an electrical engineer for thirty years, combining that with refereeing, until taking up his present post with the FA.
In 2002, Wilkie published his autobiography, "One Night at the Palace: A Referee's Story", co-written with George Miller.
- †One Night at the Palace: A Referee's Story, Alan Wilkie & George Miller, Parrs Wood Press 2002, ISBN 1-903158-35-4
External links
- Alan Wilkie Referee Statistics at soccerbase.com (incomplete)
- The Cantona Incident - "The reaction", interviews by Jamie Jackson of The ObserverThe ObserverThe Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
newspaper