by Tim Flower
So, as the team captains swapped mementos and shook hands in the centre of the pitch prior to the toss, I took a seat on the rear rank of Argentina’s green wooden benches, beneath the Royal Box. From a comfort standpoint, I soon regretted abandoning my seat in the stand; and not just because the bench lacked a backrest or shading from the hot summer sun. Forsyth’s endeavours to manufacture Hampden Park’s intimidating atmosphere at Wembley - aided latterly by my fellow reporters denouncing England’s quarter-final opponents as, essentially, a team of dirty Latin cheats - were at last bearing fruit. When an Argentinian player retrieved a practice ball from our vicinity, a large body of England supporters behind a worryingly low wall to my right, booed and hissed; not in a pantomime way: venomously, as if they really believed the player and his compatriots with whom I was sitting were baddies.
Argentina’s malevolent image compared to England’s honourable one was reflected in the teams’ contrasting strips. Whereas England were playing in all white and their shirts had conventional round necks and long-sleeves, the South Americans wore suspiciously unfamiliar pale blue and white striped shirts, with short sleeves and collars. Their shorts were jet black and their socks were a strange, moody grey.
The appearance of the captains reinforced the stereotypes. Bobby Moore, all but wore a white hat. He was golden-haired and fair skinned. With a red number six on the back of his lily-white shirt, he carried the colours of St. George. And, although little more than average height, his habit of puffing out his chest gave him the bearing of a proud English lion. Antonio Rattin, in contrast, was six foot three and round shouldered. With lush, raven-coloured hair and a saturnine complexion, he was unmistakably “foreign” and loomed over his pale opposite number. Emblazoned on the rear of his shirt was a glossy black “10”. It might as well have been “666”.
The home crowd threat had distracted me from the team news. So the match had kicked off before I realised the place of the injured Jimmy Greaves had been taken by the less talented, more robust, Geoff Hurst. I also spotted that, for the first time in the World Cup finals, none of England’s wingers were on the pitch. Ramsey had forgone width and creativity, opting instead for a gritty foursome in midfield and two big boys up front. I imagined Da lying in his hospital bed with an “I told you so” grin on his face. The “wingless wonders” had returned.
It soon became apparent that what they had returned for was a pitched battle; and, for a while, it looked like it would be a losing one. Both teams made up for technical deficiencies with toughness and physicality and neither hesitated to use illegal force to extinguish a threat. But under Rattin’s leadership for the first thirty-five minutes, Argentina did this more effectively and had created better goal-scoring opportunities. The prospects of any crowd seeing England in a World Cup semi-final didn’t look promising, let alone a Goodison Park one.
Inevitably, in a game like this, fouls proliferated. When the offender’s shorts were black, the crowd would erupt and bay for blood. More often they were white, and the victim would be subjected to howls of abuse and accusations of playacting. Rudolf Kreitlin, the short, bald-headed, West German referee, strutted and scurried around the pitch after the miscreants blowing his whistle and, before long, taking their names like a pedantic schoolmaster.
The home side’s reaction to what appeared to them a poor refereeing decision was, in true English tradition, generally limited to a restrained shake of the head or a mumbled profanity under an otherwise stiff upper lip. The visitors, however, responded as players routinely did in South America: by arguing the toss. In fact, Rattin seemed to see it as his duty as captain, for he protested Kreitlin’s rulings with unfailing regularity. He appeared unconstrained by the fact he could only express his grievance in Spanish and Kreitlin understood only German.
When a teammate was cautioned, and he had his own name taken for tripping Bobby Charlton, Rattin complained with particular volume and intensity. So when, in the thirty-sixth minute, Kreitlin entered “Luis Artime” in his little black book (it must be said, for no obvious reason I could see) I certainly expected Rattin to subject the referee and his decision to a vociferous challenge. However, I didn’t for one moment foresee what followed it.
I could see Rattin furiously tapping his armband of office and jabbing his forefinger at the West German official. On the front bench just below me, Argentina’s manager, “Toto” Lorenzo, got to his feet and started shouting, in what I presumed to be Spanish, in their direction. I turned to Carlos next to me.
‘What’s going on? What’s Toto saying.’
‘He say… el árbitro…’ Carlos pointed at the diminutive official in black and then held out his hand about five feet above the ground.
‘Herr Kreitlin, the referee?’
‘Si, referee. He not… justa. He…’ Carlos mimed blowing a whistle, ‘…only for England. Not for us.’
Toto had a point. England had committed more fouls than their opponents, despite Kreitlin deeming fair some robust tackles that in South America would undoubtedly have been penalised. Yet the West German had taken down three player’s names during the first third of the match, all of them Latin.
‘Señor Lorenzo, he wants… how you say… inter-pret-tay.’
‘An interpreter?’
‘Si. Señor Rattin, he el capitán. He must have inter-pre-ter. Referee, he must…,’ he clicked his fingers in frustration and pointed to his ear.
‘Listen?’
‘Si. He must ‘ear what Señor Rattin say.’
From early on, I had suspected that Kreitlin resented the Argentinian captain’s running critique of his performance, despite it being delivered in a language he didn’t understand. So I was about to suggest to Carlos that silencing their captain might be a better cause of action than translating his complaints, when I saw Kreitlin - who had tried and failed to rid himself of Rattin’s protest with a dismissive wave of his hand - suddenly shoot his right arm up directly above his head and, with his left, point dramatically in our direction.
‘I think Kreitlin has sent him off,’ I exclaimed.
‘Expulsado?’ Carlos looked and sounded utterly incredulous. ‘Impo-see-blay!’
The Argentinian front bench, dressed in bright blue tracksuits, reacted more strongly. Led by Toto, they hurled, in Kreitlin’s direction, a barrage of what I presumed - judging by its furious tone and the hysterical gesticulations that accompanied it - was violent Spanish invective.
Whilst Rattin’s teammates joined in the angry protest, the captain himself took more direct action: he flatly ignored the order to leave the field and, again pointing at his captain’s armband, appeared to plead his case that he had been misunderstood.
Kreitlin, however, showed no signs of reviewing his decision. He repeatedly blew his whistle at the Argentinian captain and flicked his hand in our direction, as if attempting to rid himself of a pestering fly. Rattin stood his ground.
Infuriated by Kreitlin’s intransigence, Toto instructed his players to leave the pitch. Only one of them didn’t respond: their captain, Rattin. So, ironically, several minutes after the referee had ordered him off the field of play, he was the only Argentinian player left on it.
I had never witnessed anything like this before at a professional football match. The scene was bizarre. Kreitlin was clearly adamant that the name “Antonio Rattin” would appear in the annals as the first player in an international match at the Empire Stadium ever to be sent off. The visitors were equally adamant that, unless their captain was reinstated, they would not play on. It was more like a playground kick-about that a World Cup quarter-final at Wembley. Any minute, I expected one of the two protagonists to pick up the match ball and take it home.
As the minutes ticked by with no sign of the match resuming, the home crowd grew increasingly angry and vocal. Not surprisingly, Rattin was the target of their ire: one of the England fans near me called him a “dirty dago”; another, the “greasy” product of a union out of wedlock - or words to that eff
ect.
Conscious of the crowd’s restlessness, and unable to see a way out of the impasse, I said to Carlos, ‘It looks like Kreitlin will have to abandon it.’
‘A-ban-don?’
‘Stop. Finish. Terminate.’ I mimed cutting my own throat.
Carlos looked startled. ‘Herr Kreitlin?’ and repeated the mime - with sound effects.
‘No, no! Not the referee: the football match.’
‘Ah, partido de fútbol terminado. Si. Okay.’
Although Carlos seemed relaxed at the prospect of an unprecedented abandonment of a World Cup Finals match, it soon became clear that certain grey-suited officials were not. Ken Aston - who had been sitting, no doubt increasingly uncomfortably, in the posh seats above me - appeared at the side of the pitch, accompanied by Harry Cavan, the commissar appointed by FIFA to oversee the match. They began urgently shuttling back and forth between Kreitlin and Rattin.
The Argentinian was bound to see Aston, an Englishman, as even more partisan than the West German referee. Moreover, due to his failure to dismiss any Chilean players for their violent contributions to the “Battle of Santiago”, Aston had a reputation amongst other Latin teams for caving to home crowd pressure.
Harry Cavan was the Chairman of the Northern Irish FA. To a foreigner, therefore, he was also English.
Consequently, I had little confidence that either of them would get the match restarted, even if they could speak German and Spanish, which I thought unlikely.
My doubts seemed well founded, when Rattin firmly resisted Aston’s attempt to escort him off the pitch. The FIFA official resorted to appealing to the Argentinian’s manager. This soon led to Toto manically beckoning Carlos to join them.
Carlos turned to me. ‘He no understand English,’ he explained. ‘You come too. My English is little good only.’ He gave an embarrassed smile.
Given that my Spanish was non-existent, I wondered how my fluency in English would help. Nonetheless, since I might just witness first-hand international football history in the making, I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation.
As soon as we reached the edge of the pitch where the pair were standing, and Carlos had explained (with my help) that we were there to interpret for Toto, Aston said, ‘Please tell Señor Lorenzo that Herr Kreitlin has quite properly dismissed their number ten for violence of the tongue. In England, we demand the game be played in a civilised manner. We won’t stand for players insulting the referee.’ Then he paused.
Carlos gave me a look that said, “I didn’t understand what Señor Aston just said, but it didn’t sound good.” So I took him to one side and attempted to translate.
‘He wants you to tell Señor Lorenzo,’ I said slowly and loudly, ‘that Rattin was…,’ I remembered his word for “sent off”, ‘…ex-pull-sado for saying bad words,’ I shook my finger, ‘to the referee.’ I pointed at Kreitlin, who was some distance away, tapping his foot and examining his watch like an impatient commuter.
‘Impo-see-blay! Harry,’ Carlos shrugged his shoulders and turned his palms skywards, ‘Referee, he no understand Spanish bad words.’
To signal my sympathy, I returned his gesture.
He sighed and, after a lively exchange in Spanish with Toto, said, ‘I tell Señor Lorenzo. He say Señor Rattin want inter-pre-ter: he not use bad words.’
Toto seemed to have conveyed a good deal more. So I asked, ‘Is that all Señor Lorenzo said?’
‘No,’ Carlos whispered. ‘He say mucho bad words also.’
We rejoined Aston, and I passed on what Carlos had relayed - minus the bad words bit.
Aston responded with an ultimatum. ‘Tell Señor Lorenzo that either Rattin leaves the pitch right away and the rest of the team get on with the game or Argentina will be expelled from the World Cup with immediate effect.’
After leading me back to where Toto was standing, again Carlos sought a translation.
‘He said Rattin must go,’ I explained, pointing towards the tunnel at the east end of the ground. ‘Argentina must play now with no Rattin.’
Carlos nodded and spoke briefly to Toto in Spanish. The manager gave a derisive laugh, a dismissive wave and uttered some curt words to Carlos, who promptly announced, ‘Señor Lorenzo: he say, no Señor Rattin, team no play.’
‘But Carlos,’ I pleaded, ‘if you don’t play on without Rattin, Argentina will be thrown out of the World Cup.’
‘Ara-hen-tina will be… what you say?’
‘Thrown out. Banned. Disqualified.’ Carlos looked puzzled. ‘Argentina will be ex-pull-sado from the World Cup?’
His look switched from puzzlement to horror. He turned to Toto and gabbled urgently to him in their native tongue. He didn’t need to translate the manager’s response. It was obvious that Argentina were still unwilling to play ball - literally or metaphorically.
I glanced over at Aston and Cavan to see their reaction to his defiance. Before I could register it, however, my attention was taken by a third man in earnest conversation with them. He was as tall as Aston but thinner and his suit was navy blue. His back was half towards me; so it was only when he turned in our direction that I saw the scar on his right cheek. It was unmistakably the man I saw leaving Central Hall, who I believed to be “the Pole”.
He walked over to where Carlos and I were minding Toto. Whilst fixing Toto with a look of cold determination, he said to the two of us, ‘Gentlemen: my name is Radford. I’m with the Foreign Office.’
I was immediately struck by his lack of a Polish accent. He spoke, not like a Pole, but a native Londoner putting on a telephone voice.
Carlos whispered to me, ‘Who is him?’
Good question, I thought. According to George McCabe, Radford was the name of the FIFA Referee Support Officer who had warned him about South American histrionics (although FIFA claimed not to know of him). Mears, on the other hand, had led me to believe that a man matching the description of the one stood in front of me (who he knew as “the Pole”) worked with him at the FA. Yet the man himself claimed to be from the Foreign Office.
‘He works for the Gov-ern-ment,’ I replied loudly, whilst simultaneously wondering what Foreign Office task could have taken “Radford” to Central Hall the day the Jules Rimet trophy was stolen.
‘Gov-ern-ment?’
‘You know… the people who run the country. Like Harold Wilson. And President Johnson in America.’ Carlos still didn’t understand. Then I had a flash of inspiration. ‘You know General Franco in Spain?’
‘Franco? Si.’
‘Like him.’
Carlos looked at Radford with a mixture of fear and awe, before turning to Toto and muttering something in Spanish.
‘Tell Señor Lorenzo,’ Radford said brusquely, ‘that we have in our possession a dossier containing full details of his and his players sexual exploits whilst here in Britain.’
Carlos gave me a puzzled look. ‘Doss-e-ay?’
‘He means a file of information…,’ I mimed opening a book, ‘…about Señor Lorenzo,’ and pointed to Argentina’s apprehensive looking manager.
‘Información sobre Toto?’ Carlos sounded surprised but unperturbed. ‘Okay.’
Radford continued, ‘Unless Rattin leaves the pitch immediately and permanently and the match continues right away without further incident, that dossier will be presented to General Onganía.’
Suspecting that Carlos didn’t appreciate what the dossier was said to contain, I whispered, ‘The in-for-math-e-on is about… sex’ and mimed, as tastefully as I could, a man doing it doggy style.
‘Sexo!’ said Carlos, rather too loudly.
I nodded. ‘If Argentina don’t play without Rattin, he,’ I said, indicating Radford, ‘will show the sexo in-for-math-e-on to the General.’
‘The General? Oh, dios mío!’
‘But if Rattin leaves now,’ I said, pointing towards the tunnel, ‘nobody will see it.’ I did my charades book mime in reverse and shook my head.
Whilst Carlos relayed the
ultimatum to Toto in Spanish and the home crowd took a break from abusing Rattin and his fellow countrymen and sang, “Why are we waiting?”, I wondered who General Onganía was and why he would be interested in Toto’s and his team’s hanky-panky. I also considered using the pause in negotiations to question Radford. However, I was unsure whether I needed permission to interrogate a member of the Foreign Office, so I shuffled uncomfortably on the spot instead.
He was more assertive. Turning towards me, he said, ‘Mr Miller, why are you assisting the Argentines?’ He glanced at Toto and Carlos, whose conversation was becoming - in a heavily constrained way - increasingly animated.
I was astonished that he knew who I was. Unable to decide how best to respond, I answered truthfully. ‘Carlos Garcia invited me to watch the match with him,’ I said, pointing him out. ‘He’s Argentina’s press officer.’
‘I know who Señor Garcia is,’ Radford said abruptly.
‘Oh, you do. Good. Well, Carlos asked me to help him interpret.’ I lowered my voice. ‘His English is little better than my Spanish, to be honest.’ I chuckled.
Radford remained stony-faced.
Toto broke off his vehement discussion with Carlos and strode defiantly up to Radford. Making a bull horns sign in his face, he screamed “concha inglés”, before storming off in Rattin’s direction.
I followed him for a few steps and then watched whilst he engaged his team’s captain in another intense discussion. When I glanced back to where Radford had been standing, I found he had disappeared and a trio of senior police officers had taken his place.
