Whistle in the dark

If there's any justice to be had, the day will soon arrive when we can all sit back and tell the grandchildren about a world that was so cruel, we not only insisted on publicly humiliating our robbers and murderers, but also our umpires and referees.

How the kids will laugh, especially when we detail the extraordinary lengths we went to in order to portray our match officials as hopeless village idiots, purely for the sake of tradition and our own personal viewing entertainment.

And expect to bring the house down when you explain to the young ones that at the same time we were hanging these wacky whistlers out to dry at every opportunity chiefly by denying them access to basic technological assistance we were also struggling to understand why the profession was attracting so few quality recruits.

Old men will slap their thighs and guffaw at the memory of the days when we preferred to force our officials to guess on the strength of the naked eye, rather than offering them the information that the average punter was already digesting at home.

Memories of Maradona's "Hand of God" goal in 1986, missed by the man holding the whistle but seen by almost everyone else on the planet, will doubtless merge with Aussie wicketkeeper Greg Dyer's deception at Melbourne in 1987, and New Zealand umpire Brian Aldridge's blooper at the start of the 1992 cricket world cup final.

Never mind the more recent examples, such as when Hawke's Bay forward Clint Newland was allowed to remain on the park after his game-deciding punch on Neemia Tialata, the archaic time-keeping in the second netball test at Melbourne, and the comedy of errors in the just-completed England-India test cricket series.

Even in last year's football world cup final, when technology was at least used to identify Zinedine Zidane's off-the-ball assault on Marco Materazzi, France were still gifted their first penalty courtesy of - given television evidence - a blatant Florent Malouda dive.

Which is why one day, hopefully soon, we'll be able to speak with feigned disbelief about a time when the only person who wasn't allowed access to all the information in a multi-million dollar operation, was the one person who was charged with running it competently.

"Why ever did you do that?" the children will chorus, and the answers will surely have them doubled over in near fits: "Well, we wanted to retain a certain human charm ... we didn't want to slow things down ... it would've detracted from the tradition of the game ... haven't you heard of the `glorious uncertainty of sport'?"

Of course, we'd have to explain that some of our match officials had probably been well beyond help as it was, and that it would have taken the sort of technology you'd find in a neurology ward, rather than a broadcaster's van, to help them improve their act.

On that note, it's still hard to forget the look on the face of England batsman Graham Thorpe as he stared in astonishment at Doug Cowie's up-raised finger during the third cricket test against New Zealand a few years back, having apparently been adjudged caught at the wicket.

Television replays soon located the reason for Thorpe's surprise; the end-on camera didn't reveal simply a glimpse of daylight between the edge of his bat and the passing ball, but enough room for viewers to see, in the backdrop, two families picnicking on the terrace.

Then there was linesman Gary Wise's explanation for missing the Newland punch a few weeks back when he was almost close enough to be struck himself: he was too busy trying advise the referee that Hawke's Bay had thrown the ball in on Wellington's side.

Which is why, even if the complete adoption of technological assistance for sports officials seems as inevitable as death and taxes, we might as well sit back in the meantime and enjoy the armchair comedy that anything less is sure to provide.

But just one point: if we're going to be so intent on making our refs and umps look like complete pork chops, we should also acknowledge there's a lot more we could do to make them appear even sillier.

Personally, I favour the idea of recruiting all cricket umpires from France, appointing circus chimpanzees to control international netball fixtures, and forcing rugby and league referees to commentate while they're officiating (oh, hang on, they're doing that anyway).

It seems doubtful, though, that our conservative guardians will go quite so far, which means we'll all just have to put up with the current situation in which officials are required to make their decisions while virtually blindfolded and cut off from the rest of the world.

Quite who will want to volunteer for this sort of work isn't yet apparent, given the main job requirements are a rhinoceros-like skin, an ability to argue a point no matter how hopeless the basis, and an acceptance from applicants they'll always be treated like pariahs.

For all that, there's already a suggestion that the role might dovetail comfortably with the skill-set of municipal parking-meter attendants and Auckland mayoralty candidates, not to mention police officers, politicians and Christine Rankin.

Indeed, in Billy Bowden - New Zealand cricket's answer to Krusty the Klown - we may have already received a glimpse of the sort of character ideally suited to a world in which everyone knows what's going on, apart from the poor blighter charged with making the decision.

Clearly, our Billy recognised from the start of his career there was no point in striving for serious credibility, when all the odds suggested he'd end up being portrayed as a five-ball over, or at least compared with the deaf mute from the film Deliverance.

For him, the issue was one of professionalism.

I mean, if you're going to get laughed at, you may as well make a career of it.

- © Fairfax NZ News