Battle royal at Palace

It was the occasion that Eric Cantona went kung-fu crazy, failed utterly to keep his feet on the ground and gave eternal new meaning to the phrase about shit and fan.

The referee was Alan Wilkie, at the time a BT engineer from Chester-le-Street. At the final whistle, he admits, he may have been the only person in Selhurst Park without the least notion of what had been kicking off.

"Someone asked me afterwards how I could have been so calm," he recalls. "Of course I was calm, I'd no idea what was going on."

He'd seen M. Cantona take a kick at Crystal Palace defender Richard Shaw, of course, sent the red devil to the showers, allowed a dozen or so players to get between himself and the tunnel.

"I was standing talking to Andy Cole when all of a sudden there's a roar and I'm talking to myself.

"My main concern was to get the players back onto the field of play and get the game started again. It was only in the dressing room that one of the assistants told me what he'd done."

Alex Ferguson, expletives undeleted, followed into the referee's room soon afterwards. Death threats, both to Wilkie and to his family, ensued within days.

The police task was perhaps made easier, however, by the outraged supporter who kindly supplied his name and address.

Manchester United had beaten Blackburn Rovers, their main championship rivals, a few days earlier. "I just don't think United wanted to be on that horrible little ground that night," says Wilkie.

Unedifying as it was, however, the Cantona carry-on provided not just the subject of a cartoon in his study but the title of his eye opening new autobiography.

For all the landmarks in a career marked out on courage and confidence - Terry Curran's two finger salute at Sunderland, Gazza's unfortunate elbow at the Boro, the agonised end to his Worthington Cup final at Wembley - football folk will most indelibly remember Alan Wilkie for One Night At the Palace.

Sometimes mistaken for David Elleray, he was born in Denton Burn, Newcastle, watched childhood heroes like Len White and Ivor Allchurch from the terraces at St James' Park, wet his whistle at 24 after a serious knee injury in a local league game in Gateshead.

Prone and in pain near the goal line, he crawled from the pitch in order - claims the book - that he might not play the opposition onside.

Since we are old friends - though other sections of the media are described (among other unpleasantries) as "a pack of toads" - we suggest that no such thought occurred to him.

"Well," he concedes, "I wanted to get out of the way, anyway."

His progress was rapid, three cup final appointments among the 117 matches during his first season in public park football, a memento from the Bob Curry Cup the first of the very many he still treasures.

Within four years he'd reached the Northern League line, might have run that straight and narrow a year earlier had he not delivered his application a day late. By 1988 he was a Football League referee.

That he didn't quite make the FIFA list, too old at 42, was also, he thinks, because his progress had been put back 364 days.

"I didn't blame Gordon Nicholson, the Northern League secretary. He taught me a lot about discipline."

There were other misfortunes, too - like mistaking an inflatable banana for the yellow flash of a linesman's flag, like changing into a white T-shirt when team colours clashed at Everton, like the rabbit paella he ate after a UEFA match in Spain - but the occasion on which he came closest to chucking it all in wasn't after that night at the Palace but after a match at Ewood Park, Blackburn.

Liverpool led 3-2, into injury time, when a shot from Alan Shearer struck John Barnes on the arm.

The crowd screamed for a penalty; the referee thought it accidental. The game ended acrimoniously shortly afterwards and in the dressing room the League referees officer at the time "advised" him against going upstairs for refreshments.

"I told him I always went upstairs. I was furious. I said that if you couldn't have a pint and a bit crack after the match then it wasn't worth carrying on. I'd resigned by the time we got to Darwen."

High among his heroes is Stuart Pearce - "if he was going to kick someone he'd kick them up front, then apologise before you sent him off" - prominent among the villains former Arsenal and Spurs manager George Graham and the snarling, sneering Graham Taylor.

And the nearest that he's been - a once pugnacious 5ft 8ins - to smacking some obstreperous oaf in the teeth?

"Oh, any amount of times," he says. "It was only in the latter part of my career that I learned completely to control myself.

"The clue is in how the card is shown. If it's right in a player's face, then you know the referee wants to hit him.

"You have to take a step back, but it took me about 15 years to learn that."

With BT for 30 years, he became the FA's regional referees manager after leaving the Premiership at 48 and admits that bits of the book might have been more outspoken had he not worked for the governing body.

For all that, he confesses relief at having blown the final whistle before the theoriticians (and others with big titles and little idea) got their hands on his game.

"It wasn't rocket science. I just wanted the players to work with me, but the game is changing and expectations of referees are changing.

"They have psychiatrists and dieticians and goodness knows what. I can't honestly say that I would have enjoyed doing some of the things they have to do now."

He enjoyed rather more greatly, perhaps, advising Premiership referees' officer Philip Don of the error of his ways when Don talked of employing psychologists to "empower" referees.

"Bollocks," said referee Wilkie, unequivocally.

Official eyebrows have also been raised at his unashamed liking for a drink - "red wine helps you to sleep" - and at the sight, or smell, of his cigars.

An FA official even attempted to rebuke him for smoking when acting as an assessor. "In my day," says Alan, "it was what you did on the field that mattered.

"Whatever happened to courage and confidence. I don't need someone to tell me how to deal with people."

His smart house on the outskirts of Chester-le-Street overflows with mementoes, among the most prized signed shirts from Arsenal and Manchester United to mark his retirement in May 2000.

Twenty seven years after crawling from the field, he is proud to have played so high profile a role - "I enjoy being recognised" - in the middle of it.

"I wanted to keep involved because I had a passion for football, and I still have. It's a game for players and spectators, I just felt it a privilege to be allowed to take part as well."

* One Night At the Palace by Alan Wilkie and George Miller. (Parrs Wood Press, £16 95.)

Backtrack briefs

News to delight his many admirers in the Durham County Cricket League of our old friend Peter William Teesdale, hereinafter known as Grandad.

Two or three years ago, Bulldog Billy was at a crowded funeral in Evenwood when a mobile phone rang amid the solemnities. Ask not for whom the bell tolled, it tolled for Peter William.

On Sunday he was at the christening in St Helen's Auckland of young Billy's bairn when precisely the same thing happened.

"There's always one isn't there?" sighed the priest.

"Aye," replied another member of that fraternity, "but there's never been a one like our Billy."

Tuesday's piece on the 50th anniversary of Billingham Synthonia's floodlights reminded John Bailey that the Billingham Express reporter at the time was probably the youthful Frank Bough and Roger Cliff of a note in last weekend's Sunday Times about the first floodlit FA Cup match.

It was November 28 1955, a second replay at St James Park between Darlington and Carlisle United. A 34,257 crowd paid £4,810 to witness the luminous occasion, making the three game total 66,418.

With goals from Bill Rutherford, Harry Bell and Ken Furphy, Darlington won 3-1. The first Football League match under lights, Portsmouth v Newcastle United, switched on a year later.

We also noted on Tuesday that Prescott Cables had become the first non-league team to fly to an FA Cup tie, a departure confirmed by the Echo's match report from Darlington on November 14 1959.

"Two of the party were airsick," noted our man Robjay, perhaps a little unnecessarily.

Quakers won 4-0. "Prescott were as much out of their class ass a bantam in a heavyweight championship," Robjay added.

It was also the day that dear old Shildon played Oldham Athletic, robbed by a last minute equaliser which most of the 4,000 crowd (receipts £432) swore had gone in off Bill Spurdle's right hand.

The Railwaymen travelled to the replay by bus. Hopes grounded, we lost 3-1.

John Hutchinson, a Bishop Auckland fan in those far off days of the 50s, urges the column to help him end "40 years of deprivation."

His parents - "to my great regret" - would never let him have a corncrake. Now in Edinburgh, and with more freedom to rattle about, he's anxious to buy one - particularly in the lustrous two blues. We'll pass on offers.

John Briggs, meanwhile, reports that on E-bay, the Internet auction site, a Bishop Auckland Subutteo team from those happy days has just been sold for £87. Little big time all over again.

Several of the Boro old boys who turned out at Billingham on Sunday were again in action at Whitby Town on Monday, against a Heartbeat XI which included PC Bradley and Sgt Merton.

Others - Vernon Scripps, David Stockdale and Jenny Latimer - were busy on the sidelines.

The match raised £1890 for the Seasiders' "New Complex" appeal, standing in a short time at over £16,000. "A tremendous night," says club chairman Graham Manser.

Bernard Gent, another former big noise at the Boro - the Ayresome Park announcer for over 20 years - is back in the colours.

He's been signed up as Boro TV's first continuity announcers, linking programmes for six hours each night. The familiar big band music from The Power Game has been transferred with him.

"Bernard's voice is synonymous with the promotion years and the Jack Charlton era," says Boro TV presenter Alastair Brownlee.

"We're hoping to recreate that special atmosphere."

And finally...

The two England internationals whose surnames began with the letter "q" (Backtrack, November 12) were Albert Quixall of Sheffield Wednesday and Alf Quantrill of Derby County.

Brian Shaw in Shildon today invites readers to identify the six countries to whom England lost at Wembley in the 1990s.

International clearance after another wet weekend.

Published: 15/11/2002