Red Card, Yellow Card

[Cosmic Joe]

Anyone know who the first recipients were in a domestic Scottish game?

[Monkey Tennis]

I've no idea what the answer is.

Am I right in saying though, that we introduced cards, then stopped them for a couple of seasons, then brought them back?

Or was that in England? Or have I made it all up?

[atfccfc]

I've no idea what the answer is.

Am I right in saying though, that we introduced cards, then stopped them for a couple of seasons, then brought them back?

Or was that in England? Or have I made it all up?

The English football league suspended Yellow/Red cards Between 1980-81 to 1987-88 season. So you are right.

Don't know about Scotland but found this information.

David Wagstaff was the first recipient of a Red in the Football league on Saturday 2nd October 1976 for Blackburn at Orient, George Best the got the 2nd whilst playing for Fulham at Southampton the same day

[Cardinal Richelieu]

The English football league suspended Yellow/Red cards Between 1980-81 to 1987-88 season. 

 

Didn't know that! So what did they do instead, or did they play murderball for those 2 seasons?

[HibeeJibee]

Before WC 1970 there was no such thing as a "yellow card" or indeed a "red": you could be warned about things by the referee and you could be sent-off, but there were no visual aids and no official intermediate caution.

 

Then came along a referee called Ken Aston... an experienced EFL official, the man in the middle during the 'Battle of Santiago' at WC 1962, and head of refs at the 1966 World Cup where there was great confusion about whether Rattin of Argentina had been sent off or not (during a famously thuggish match v England - the one which Kenneth Wolstenhome lambasts in a famous clip).

 

Aston realised that it could be better to have a colour symbol which players could understand regardless of language, and fans or journalists could see and understand at a distance. In tandem with that the yellow card made it clearer to players when they were on 'thin ice'. They were suspended during the 1980s owing to hooliganism and the feeling that refs flashing cards inflamed things in the stands. I don't know if the equivalent of a 'yellow card' continued but as a solely verbal caution, or if it went fully back to the pre-1970 arrangements.

[Poet of the Macabre]

I'm totally baffled. Had no idea they'd taken away yellow and red cards after bringing them in. Feels like one of those things someone has went back in time and changed.

[craigkillie]

Found this from the Herald in the Google Newspaper Archive.

 

[Ranaldo Bairn]

So did we indeed do away with them?

 

My gast is flabbered at this revelation; I never even knew that our neighbours had done away with them for a time.

[Monkey Tennis]

Before WC 1970 there was no such thing as a "yellow card" or indeed a "red": you could be warned about things by the referee and you could be sent-off, but there were no visual aids and no official intermediate caution.

 

Then came along a referee called Ken Aston... an experienced EFL official, the man in the middle during the 'Battle of Santiago' at WC 1962, and head of refs at the 1966 World Cup where there was great confusion about whether Rattin of Argentina had been sent off or not (during a famously thuggish match v England - the one which Kenneth Wolstenhome lambasts in a famous clip).

 

Aston realised that it could be better to have a colour symbol which players could understand regardless of language, and fans or journalists could see and understand at a distance. In tandem with that the yellow card made it clearer to players when they were on 'thin ice'. They were suspended during the 1980s owing to hooliganism and the feeling that refs flashing cards inflamed things in the stands. I don't know if the equivalent of a 'yellow card' continued but as a solely verbal caution, or if it went fully back to the pre-1970 arrangements.

Wait a minute.

Are you saying that until the introduction of cards, such a thing as a booking, a formal sanction that might lead to suspension and if repeated in the same match would result in an ordering off, didn't exist?

Have I misunderstood you here, or is that what you mean? I'd just always assumed that you could get booked.

Despite the 1966 World Cup playing a part, am I right in saying that cards weren't introduced until the 1974 World Cup? I think the phenomenon was still novel when that poor sod from Zaire who booted the ball away against Brazil, got booked.

[HibeeJibee]

You could get 'cautioned' in Victorian times, but my understanding was that 2 cautions = 1 sending-off wasn't formalised until cards came in.

 

However, I could have got that wrong.

[Monkey Tennis]

You could get 'cautioned' in Victorian times, but my understanding was that 2 cautions = 1 sending-off wasn't formalised until cards came in.

 

However, I could have got that wrong.

Fair enough. I did not know that.

What about repeated bookings over a season leading to suspension?

Is that a relatively recent development too then?

[AyrshireTon]

Didn't know that! So what did they do instead, or did they play murderball for those 2 seasons?

On some old clips I've seen the referee writing in his book was the sign that the player was being cautioned. A straight red was usually met with the same but with the referee then pointing to the tunnel. This relied on the player leaving the field without any resistance.

Often caused confusion for commentators.