RateTheRef

Indeed, the circumstances of referees' final games are so various. It can be a major Cup Final, a title decider or seemingly just an ordinary run of the mill end of season match. Some years ago I know that League referees were asked if there was a particular ground where they would like to make their final appearance, perhaps sentiment or I believe one or two referees chose the ground where they made their League debut ( shades of T S Eliot "arrive where we started and know the place for the first time" and all that )

Two of Hertfordshire's finest Grant Hegley and Mick Russell had most unusual final matches as noted elsewhere on RTR. The former limping off injured at Portman Road ( so often a place for referee injuries through the ages ) and the latter an abandonment at Blackpool due to a crowd protest. Abandoning; an irony not lost on Mick Russell I suspect.

In the 1980s and up to the onset of the Premier League referees scheduled to retire were often given a top Division game to end their career, sometimes a "low-stakes", mid-table encounter but occasionally a match with significance at the top or bottom of the table. When the Premier League came into being Football League referees often got a Championship game on which to sign-off but that's become less common in more recent times and with the advent of SG2 not an option for most FL referees so returning to where they started their career or to some other significant venue has become popular. I think retiring referees may also be able to request specific assistants in some cases.

Clearly when a referee knows he is departing the occasion is going to be charged in a very different way to the unscheduled departure. Often it will be a emotional occasion which can be an argument against the game being a "high-stakes" encounter like a Cup Final or vital promotion or relegation encounter. However there may even be occasions where a referee is glad to reach the end, perhaps finding refereeing less satisfying or too pressured and maybe having carried on more out of a sense of duty than enjoyment.

By contrast the referees making unscheduled departures go into their final games unaware of their later significance. What seemed like a routine game can then take on much greater import. Sometimes it is that actual game that prompts the departure as in the case of injury or some unsettling event that leads to them calling it a day. Often the game passes without incident but later events cause it to be the final outing.