As a schoolboy in Dover, David Elleray's ambition was to referee at the
football World Cup finals: at the age of 13 he started on that road by becoming
the youngest person ever to referee in an official capacity.
Now one of the most
recognisable figures in football, he retires from full-time refereeing at the
end of the present season. The last of the amateur refs in the top-flight and no
stranger to controversy, he is a household name to readers of both tabloids and
broadsheets and without a doubt the highest profile British referee in the world
game.
This highly entertaining and revealing memoir tells of his involvement at the
highest level of the national and international game over four decades.
Intelligent and insightful, it is a story of ambition, achievement and incident
covering a career that has taken him all over the world from Yeltsin's Kremlin
to the biggest match in Brazilian domestic football, to Wembley Cup Finals, to
on and off-field confrontations with some of the game's biggest names (Roy
Keane, Vinnie Jones), to death threats and police protection.