RateTheRef

Warning, contains disturbing scenes from the beginning...

I always though Bob Mathewson, especially as an ex player, was a safe pair of hands but he had a mare in this game. Whether the occasion got to him or what I don’t know. A booking for Giles for that punch, albeit with an overly dramatic response from Keegan, was lenient to say the least and surely provoked the subsequent Keegan/Bremner spat.
He had a much better games in the 1977 Cup Final

Looking at the Liverpool v Leeds 1974 clip above. Why isn't the referee showing the Yellow card???

And the cards were a godsend, making things so much easier. It was unclear here that Keegan and Bremner had been sent off - no cards, no hand gesture from the ref etc.
There is an archived game which has been mentioned before on RTR (but cant recall which it was) where the ref sends the player off just by a jerky head gesture towards the touch line, an angry expression and clearly saying “get off”. Even the commentator didn’t realise at first what was happening

And the cards were a godsend, making things so much easier. It was unclear here that Keegan and Bremner had been sent off - no cards, no hand gesture from the ref etc.
There is an archived game which has been mentioned before on RTR (but cant recall which it was) where the ref sends the player off just by a jerky head gesture towards the touch line, an angry expression and clearly saying “get off”. Even the commentator didn’t realise at first what was happening

It may not be the incident you're referring to but there was a Charlton-Sunderland game in 1975 (footage on YT) where Jack Taylor sends off Derek Hales of Charlton, signalling the decision with what seems like a small movement of the arm and Hales just jogs away as if he were moving back into position or being subbed. It looks like a remarkably low-key sending-off in an era when they were rare and big events and would commonly provoke uproar. Maybe it was the authority of Jack Taylor that he didn't need to resort to a dramatic gesture or credit to Hales in taking the decision without any fuss. There was great stigma in sendings-off then and some referees may have wanted to avoid drawing attention to it. The latter was also given as an objection to the card system- that it drew attention to an "unseemly" part of the game and that cards could also be humiliating for players who knew (where there was no language barrier) what was happening to them. However that all overlooked the fact that spectators, the media and sometimes other players and managers weren't aware of what was going on or which player had been cautioned.

Does anyone know know when red and yellow cards were used in the English game ?  I have seen clips from the late seventies and they were used back then.  When I started watching football in the mid eighties they were not used until the 1987-88 season and have remained ever since.

The cards were introduced on 2nd October 1976 and withdrawn after the games on 17th January 1981. Blackburn winger Dave Wagstaffe was the first player red carded in a game at Orient by referee Les Burden but there doesn't seem to be any record or estimate of the first player to receive a yellow card.

I don't  recall whether there were any incidents in particular which lead to the withdrawal of  cards but I do remember that there was some press criticism that some referees were too theatrical in the manner that they brandished cards and that it was leading to an increase in sendings off and cautions.  It seems a bit odd now that they were withdrawn  mid season but fortunately commonsense  eventually prevailed as their purpose in improving awareness of what sanction had been imposed seemed to be indisputable.

Apparently players and managers wanted the card system withdrawn against the wishes of referees of the time. There were arguments that the card system was encouraging referees to caution or send off players although I cannot see how. The argument that issuing cards could be demeaning to players  was a little stronger but certainly in England we did not get some of the theatrical and arguably provocative ways of issuing cards that occurred in some countries. Communication though should be a paramount concern as should justice being transparent and being seen to be done which were both aided by cards. It now seems inconceivable that there could be any return to not using them.

I had them from the Day 1 in use is semi-professional football.  The idea was that - if you kept both in the same pocket - you could identify the correct one without looking and did not flash the wrong one my mistake.  did not stop me making exactly that mistake once at Chesham though 

I remember it being suggested at the time, somewhat unkindly, that the circular cards  were for the benefit  of those referees whose eyesight was not sufficiently good to distinguish between the two.