The man himself explaining his sacking and sudden departure. A salutary warning as to what you may put on social media or who you think you can trust.


"So to the end of the decade. A decade that saw the wonderful birth of a child and the sad loss of a father. One with personal highs and lows, just like everyone else I guess.

Professionally it’s been a decade of unimaginable highs and the lowest lows I could ever have imagined. Promotion to the Premier League following 3 red cards on debut at Southampton seems so long ago now. Progression to the FIFA International list followed and the opportunity to represent my country on the international stage, the highest achievement any referee can receive. A Community Shield between Arsenal and Chelsea at a full Wembley, a Championship Play Off Final with the added spice of a Yorkshire derby between Sheffield Wednesday and Hull City, 4th Official on the FA Cup Final, refereed the FA Youth Cup Final...in fact on the pitch it was a pretty successful decade on the whole. Today I sit and look at the medals and the footballs from those games in my living room and ask myself “where did it all go wrong?” The dream of not just being Fourth Official on the FA Cup Final, to lead my own team out at Wembley and achieve a lifetime ambition is one that was so close but will now only ever be a what could have been. It’s hard to accept and it has been a struggle to come to terms with that and many other things for 18 months now.

As the decade ends, I feel it’s time to let the past go now. Time to speak about what happened over the last 18 months that led me to reach the darkest places I’ve ever been to and places that I hope I never return to going forward.

I fully understand that there will be parts of what I write here that do not show me in the best light. Parts that I regret, that I should not have done and that I have always accepted responsibility for and apologised for.
When you read this I would like for you to ask yourself honestly just one question before making judgement of me...

‘Have I ever done that!’

I’m sure some may say no. I’m also certain that 95%+ will say actually yes I probably have in some closed WhatsApp group or chat with close trusted friends. Please bear this point in mind. It’s not an attempt to excuse anything I say later, it’s an attempt to explain and hopefully put things into the context I feel they deserve to be in.

It was reported when I left the Premier League in August 2018 that i had relocated for personal reasons. True to a degree. The personal reasons however were never confirmed.
The Guardian wrote a piece saying I had left and then at the end, quite randomly, stated that it may have something to do with a video I had posted on social media. This surprised me somewhat. Premier League referees are not allowed a social media account. No Twitter, no Facebook...so the idea of me posting on social media wasn’t even possible. Even so...Twitter did what Twitter does...at the possibility of a scandal it goes into meltdown and everyone becomes a detective. Rumours began to appear on Twitter that the reason I left is because I had been filmed having sex with a dog. I have to say I found this hilarious to begin with that people would somehow arrive at that conclusion. The fact was somebody posted that I’m a ‘dog botherer’ in relation to me being a Huddersfield Town fan (the Terriers) and so the rumour began. The more the day went on the less funny it became. Suddenly people were taking this seriously and now copying the story to the police on twitter saying I should be investigated. Others stated they had seen the video themselves and that I was disgusting and should be arrested. People have no idea the reputational damage something like that can do, never mind the mental issues it can cause. Even at Headingley while watching Yorkshire v Notts in a T20 I was verbally abused in the stands which very nearly ended in a fight.
Whilst I didn’t have my own social media page at the time, I was reading threats against me, very serious threats, from animal rights people who were trying to find out my address. The evening ended up with police protection for me due to these threats being taken very seriously. The story trended worldwide that evening and since that day I have received abuse regarding what is ultimately a ridiculous story.

Days later a newspaper, The Sun, the bearer of all truths, made claims of an exclusive. They claimed I had been sacked by PGMOL for posting a video on Snapchat of me bullying a disabled person. Whilst I didn’t have a social media account, I do have Snapchat. Snapchat is something I can control and never put things on my story for all to see. I can choose who I send anything to as I’m sure you’re aware and I only had close friends and family on there. This did not constitute a social media account regarding my employment.

For the next few months I was destroyed in the media and on social media. I chose not to comment on the stories which would ultimately give the tabloids what they wanted, the exclusive. What I experienced over the next few months was how devastating the British press can be and just how easily they are prepared to make up lies. For example, it was reported that I had split with my wife for my new Norwegian ‘blonde bombshell’ who was a former singer in a band called the Wizards of Oslo. She had tried to make it big on YouTube but had failed according to the paper. The truth? She was never in a band. She has never posted a single video of herself singing anything on YouTube...she’s a nurse on the infectious medicine ward at Ullevål Hospital in Oslo. I had split with my ex partner around 20 months prior to this story being published. The level of fake news and lies that they were prepared to go to was astounding.

So what is the truth?

The truth is that part of that story produced by the media is true. I’m not proud of myself for this next bit and I have to live with this for the rest of my life. It destroyed my career, my reputation and caused immeasurable damage to my family life that I won’t go into.

I’d like to start by stating that my dad, Harry, who passed away from cancer in 2011, was physically disabled for my whole life. I know more than most the difficulties of living with disability. My mum had to resign from her job as a nurse to care for him at home and as a result we were a family that relied on benefits. We lived in a council house in Ossett, West Yorkshire and lived absolutely on the breadline as my parents struggled but succeeded in giving my brother and myself a very happy upbringing.

The above story is not designed to create sympathy for me. I’m aware that many families have stories that are much worse than my own. However the fact my dad was disabled places the fact that I have been labelled as discriminatory somewhat into context.

I attended a sports day for my daughter. In the years prior to that years event I had joked with parents about not taking part in a parents race...claims back at me that I was scared of losing. All good banter. A few months prior to this a former referee, Mark Halsey, had written a newspaper article saying I was making mistakes because I was too fat. The full page and headline of ‘Blobby Bobby’ may seem funny to some but trust me being fat shamed in a national newspaper is not a nice feeling.

As I sat in my car with my phone in hand a person walked past my car in front of me who had a walking impairment. The next part I am ashamed of. I took a 6 second film, I said nothing. I did this in Snapchat which is where I take all of my films that I intend to save to my phone. On the video I wrote, “F**k me I have a chance of winning the parents race this year.” Out of context I accept this reads shamefully. I accept that. However my intention was that the joke was aimed at myself. Had I have sent this to anyone on Snapchat then I would accept the decision that later came as a result. I didn’t do that though. I saved it to my phone. I sent it as a private text to somebody who I trusted, somebody who had been a huge part of my life for the previous 10 years and who I was on reasonable terms with. Somebody who understood the context of previous sports day comments and was aware of the fat shaming I had received.
I regret taking the video, I regret sending that video and whilst it was a dark humoured joke it was just that. A joke. It was not intended to shame anyone, it was not intended to be seen by anyone other than the person I sent it privately to in a text message on my own personal phone (not a work phone).

A few weeks later I had an argument with the same person regarding a family issue at which point I was threatened for the first time regarding this video with the comment “what would your boss say if it ended up on his desk”.
At the time of this chat I was in Norway. I had driven there in order to collect my partners belongings as she was moving to England with me a few days later. On the way back to England a few days later,around Hamburg in fact, I received a phone call from my manager. An anonymous package had been received regarding me and could I meet with them before I went away on holiday (I was going to Greece for a week the week after). I agreed to meet in London on my way home, a meeting I was absolutely under the impression was a casual informal chat and hadn’t been told what I was actually there to discuss, just that it related to me and that it needed clearing up before I go away. I stayed in Holland that evening and drove straight to London the next morning. On entering the room in was clear that it was not the casual meeting I was led to believe I was going in for. HR were present along with a laptop on the table. My employers had received a USB and an anonymous letter saying I had sent this video. It was turned to face me and I was asked if I sent this. I admitted it immediately. I never once at any stage sought to deny or even to excuse it. I told them who I sent it to and that it was one private text message on my own phone and explained the context.
Two weeks later, I attended a formal disciplinary hearing in which I produced a statement from that person who had received the text message stating that it would not be sent to press and that it was only intended to embarrass me. I felt I would be given a stern warning and some level of written warning maybe even a final written warning. This was echoed by the union representative who felt the case, whilst not showing me in the best light, was clearly a private joke with someone I trusted and given the fact my own dad was disabled and the fact that I produced evidence that I do work for disabled children’s charities in my own time would be taken into account. It wasn’t. I was dismissed with immediate effect for gross misconduct on grounds of discrimination. At that point my world fell apart. I was not offered the opportunity to attend discrimination training and be put on a warning, sonething that whilst I know I am 100% aware of what discrimination is, would show my employer that I would be willing to engage in this. It was denied. Whilst I absolutely understand the importance of an employer taking discrimination seriously as they did, the decision to this day still stuns me. The same week as that a politician referred to Muslim women as letterboxes and made no apology. That man now leads the country as PM. Whilst my actions were badly misjudged, it was a joke. A private joke. Something that I am certain pretty much everyone reading this has done with friends/partners in the privacy of their relationships and with no expectation that that person would ever allow that to be used to end their professional career.

I started refereeing at 16, my career was over at 32. I had my dream job, a well paid and incredibly enjoyable job that I loved every single minute of. The footballs and medals are now all I have to remember those years of dedication and hard work. I now have Twitter, I try to help young referees where possible, offering advice on their own blossoming refereeing careers. I stand proud on there to support the fight against racism and to support all within the LGBT community both inside and outside of football. I am far from a discriminatory person and yet that is what I am labelled as when you google my name. That hurts. The last 18 months have been mental torture for me and but for those close friends and family around me, as well as a strong partner, I dread to think what could have become.

I feel now is the time to try to move forward. To put the past behind me and to rebuild both my reputation and my life as a whole. I still struggle to sleep, I still suffer mentally day to day to try to find the person I am now rather than clinging to the person I once was.

Hopefully 2020 will be the start of the new me. I am not proud of that video and as I said I have to live with that for the rest of my life. In context, it was a 6 second video, a dark private joke that cost me my career. I will never be able to accept that the decision taken was either necessary nor was it proportionate to the act. I can’t change that now. The irony is that I have spent the last 18 months defending my former colleagues, being supportive of the company regarding the implementation of VAR and have sought to throw nobody under the bus, either the person I sent it to nor my former employer. I am proud that I have kept my dignity and integrity and hopefully I can move forward on and off the pitch and learn from my own mistakes, maybe I can use that to help others and make sure they don’t make the same mistake I did that lost me everything.

Please don’t think bad of me. I’m a human being who made one mistake, one that many many people have done themselves and not lost everything for. Again, I have to pick those pieces up."

Sorry got bored after "The man himself explaining his sacking and sudden departure"

Must have been very difficult to write that.
Seems a massive over reaction by the referee’s management,
As he says 95% of us must have been there.
A warning that friendships can quickly change

A warning that friendships can quickly change

Seems a massive over reaction to me, a stupid mistake that should have been dealt with privately and all parties move on. To be fair who seriously has friends that would do something like that to get back at them.

Sounds like Richard Keogh - style sacking as in "How the **** can we get rid of this guy. To hell with double standards."

The "friend" had admiited that he only meant to embarrass him.

PL could do with him back...

The modern world we live in.

Just hope your not caught up in its madness

Animal rights nobheads are irrational and quite probably mentally ill.

Just like antifa/lefties etc, they're using some kind of "acceptable" excuse to justify their behaviour.

I remember them rumours.

When they spread like wildfire, people start believing them.

They say you're only ever a couple of poor decisions away from living a totally different life

The age of social media and smart phones has meant that one's poor decisions are now much more likely to come back to haunt you

Absoluteky. Horrible to read that. Really feel for him. One daft mistake. Many have made worse. Even on this forum.

For action theres a reaction. And in this case poor bugger has lost everything.

Trust very few people. Especially those on social media!

TLDR:

“I wasn’t sacked for having it away with a dog, I was sacked for filming and mocking a disabled person”

Hell of a sob story

My work being a large company has its own Facebook type social media, called Yammer.

I will not join as I will get myself sacked.

Someone posted a post questioning the companies ethical position on supplying engine parts to parts of the world committing alleged atrocities.

They had a short career!!!

You might think there is free speech, well it’s free as long as your not a paid employee.

claret2018 wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 31, 2019 9:10 pm

TLDR:

“I wasn’t sacked for having it away with a dog, I was sacked for filming and mocking a disabled person”

Hell of a sob story

In your world every comedian and comedy program must be stopped.

Lowbankclaret wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 31, 2019 9:14 pm

In your world every comedian and comedy program must be stopped.

I didn’t know Bobby M was a comedian. At least he’s got that career to fall back on!

Put some funny performances in to be fair to him.

claret2018 wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 31, 2019 9:23 pm

I didn’t know Bobby M was a comedian. At least he’s got that career to fall back on!

So he video's a disabled person and sends it to a mate saying he might win the parents race.

I am watching Dame Edna tonight and her programme is massively worse.

If he should be sacked for that, all programmes being derogatory to others must be banned.

When the Tourettes society go into meltdown about a joke playing the word florets, on Florets of cauliflower and broccoli and not even a mention of Tourettes then you know the World as I used to know it is doomed.

And wasn't Steve Kingdon banned from the Turf as a speaker, prematch host because he said he and his good friend Dave Thomas had not been seeing eye to eye recently?. Someone had complained about the bad taste to the joke.

That’s the last time he takes this **** out of the way I walk again!

He must have really, really upset his mate.

I must admit I’d forgotten all about him, but now remember reading some of the comments at the time on Twitter and thinking half of them were surely bullsh*t. The dog stuff clearly couldn’t have been true or the authorities would have made a statement. I guess a lot of people aren’t that switched on though.

Reading that tells me that the world we live in is sh*t. Everyone wants to be liked, it’s human nature, but it’s now spread to organisations who want to be liked, and are scared of ANY criticism. It seems like PGMOL didn’t want any criticism and didn’t know how to handle what was, essentially, a minor personal infraction. I genuinely can’t see what the guy has done wrong here, but maybe I’ve just been brought up in a different time, when humour wasn’t all taken so personally and people didn’t get as offended.

I’m sure that most of the comments were from people
Who weren’t actually offended, but like to abuse on social media.

PL proving once and for all it's run by a bunch of *****, didn't deserve to lose his job for that at all.

Clearly a mistake and clearly not meant for public consumption. I’ve certainly mocked other people privately to my other half, and I’ve also felt the injustice of an unfair sacking personally. The section I picked up on in the whole text is the reference to Boris and how the references to letter boxes was allowed to pass and now he is PM.

One decision was correct (BJ, read the article) the other decision clearly wrong (note the man's personal history around disabilities)

And yet all the pond-life journalists at the Sun who printed all out lies will still be counting their paycheques every month.

Zlatan wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 12:44 am

Clearly a mistake and clearly not meant for public consumption. I’ve certainly mocked other people privately to my other half, and I’ve also felt the injustice of an unfair sacking personally. The section I picked up on in the whole text is the reference to Boris and how the references to letter boxes was allowed to pass and now he is PM.

Yes, well he doesn't help himself there. Saying that the Prime Minister criticised the fundamentalist Moslem habit of covering the women up from head to foot so he should be allowed to get away with laughing at the disabled, is not going to win friends. Obviously there is a school of thought that you shouldn't criticise Moslems simply because it's Islamophobia to do so, but it's not helpful. He would be better emphasising that his offence was relatively trivial rather than having a go at someone else whose offence was very much more trivial.

I think PGMOL as usual think they are the highest of the moral high-ground in anything that they are associated with - and like all football referees, didn’t consider to think about the situation in front of them pragmatically and decided to act first, think later.

Even the Prime Minister can say derogatory things about people and still win the public vote - you just have to wait for the twitter storm to pass...

They could’ve re-employeed him last week, stuck him in some lower league games and no one would’ve noticed - and reintroduced him to the Premier League next season.

Poor man, career and ultimately life ruined.

The sad world we live in today, where many can't wait to see another fail, in fact are more than willing to give them a boot on the way down.

Hope he gets his life and career back on track, must have been an awful last 18 months.

Is the word Private now redundant?

What he did was wrong but he did apologise. Does the punishment fit the crime? I'm not sure it does. I agree that the PGMOL are trying to be squeaky clean but I really don't think they have handled this correctly. In the grand schemes of things he wasn't the worst referee but it's still sad to see his career finished so early. I hope he can move forward.

People these days are very, very quick to point the finger at others as somehow that makes it less likely their own "private" lives will come under scrutiny and it sets them up as people with a higher moral fibre, but almost certainly the very fact that they are pointing fingers means they're not.

Would everyone on here be backing him up had the joke been aimed at an asain person, or a gay guy, or is it OK because it was aimed at a disabled person? At least double standards are still alive in 2020.

Grumps wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:09 am

Would everyone on here be backing him up had the joke been aimed at an asain person, or a gay guy, or is it OK because it was aimed at a disabled person? At least double standards are still alive in 2020.

That's pretty much his point. You can laugh at fatness but not disability.

It's double standards that have brought in the idea of "Essex girl" jokes. Telling Irish jokes has potential to land you in trouble because Irish is a race; teliing Essex jokes doesn't because Essex isn't a race. I'm not sure of any difference in principle between the two, but there's a double standard in the practice.

Basically, a joke has a punchline, and the person in the punchline may be offended. There are certain categories who must not be in that punchline, and certain categories who may be. That's the law, and rightly or wrongly it's a double standard.

Grumps wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:09 am

Would everyone on here be backing him up had the joke been aimed at an asain person, or a gay guy, or is it OK because it was aimed at a disabled person? At least double standards are still alive in 2020.

The thing is Grumps, I would in no way seek to justify a joke like that or similar jokes as I get that they can be offensive, but I also have a real issue with these "finger pointers" who are seemingly everywhere these days and like to set themselves up as the equality police.It just makes me assume they also have stuff hidden in their own cupboard somewhere.

Grumps wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:09 am

Would everyone on here be backing him up had the joke been aimed at an asain person, or a gay guy, or is it OK because it was aimed at a disabled person? At least double standards are still alive in 2020.

It was a private joke to a "friend" who would have understood the reasoning behind it.

What he was, was too honest.

Like he said 95% if not more of people will have had/done an in private joke with friends or family, that could be deemed offensive or discriminate, not meaning to cause any offence what so ever to anyone, other than to reverse a joke, opinion or view on themselves.

Far too many people are offended for others, what happened to equality and everyone being treated equal?

On the flip side, social media has probably wrecked so many careers and lives.
Far to many people abuse it, and purposely go out to hurt people

‐--‐----------------------------------

I saw this the other day on Facebook, and it hit home abit ( mods deleate picture if inappropriate)

When you are in the public eye you need to be v careful what you say and particularly how you use social media. In this case looks like the friend wasn’t really a friend. The Sun stuff just looks like nonsense. In his line of work you cannot be seen to poke fun at a disability. Football Clubs are doing so much to help the disabled you can’t have officials be seen making remarks like this whatever the context or intent.

Poor fella. Hope he gets back on his feet in 2020.

There are some absolute bell ends on here.

So, is he wrong for saying it, or is his friend wrong for telling. Is it OK to say things in private? I lose track nowadays.

Grumps wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:09 am

Would everyone on here be backing him up had the joke been aimed at an asain person, or a gay guy, or is it OK because it was aimed at a disabled person? At least double standards are still alive in 2020.

The joke was aimed at himself though. He used a video of a disabled man to mock himself. Still a bit of a silly thing to do - I really don't think it is appropriate to go round filming folk, disabled or otherwise while going about their daily business and then sharing it.

Ill-judged joke but not Ill-intended. Terrible consequences. Clearly has generally had a rough ride.

Grumps do you often struggle to make sense of things ?

**** me, I have a chance of becoming a professional footballer.

https://youtu.be/-niqVw3wM2c

LS7 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:33 am

Grumps do you often struggle to make sense of things ?

No... Just things on here, but nice of you to ask... Need to go now, there's a football match to watch

LS7 wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 10:33 am

Ill-judged joke but not Ill-intended.

Perfectly worded.

I had no idea that he was so young when he was sacked. I'd assumed he was in his mid-late 40s

Grumps wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 9:09 am

Would everyone on here be backing him up had the joke been aimed at an asain person, or a gay guy, or is it OK because it was aimed at a disabled person? At least double standards are still alive in 2020.

The point is that the joke was self deprecating and not aimed at the disabled person in anyway whatsoever, so it is irrelevant raising this issue about other target groups who have jokes about them.

Don’t feel too bad for him really he was a crap referee and full of himself from the matches he referred in going off his antics in games. They could get rid of a few more for me, happy new year !

I am not a fan of him as a referee but would be happy to see him ref every game at the Turf this season if he gets his job back.

This is the battle of the hyper-liberal versus the normal person. Thank God those days (in many countries) seem like they are coming to an end. Let's get personality back, but keep a sense of decency too of course.

Zlatan wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 01, 2020 11:36 am

The point is that the joke was self deprecating and not aimed at the disabled person in anyway whatsoever, so it is irrelevant raising this issue about other target groups who have jokes about them.

It was taking the p1ss out of a disabled person, sorry if you don't see it that way