It's a story retired English Premier League soccer referee Keith Hackett never tires of telling when asked to make public speeches.
Hackett, 65, who visited Hawke's Bay in February as an ambassador of soccer's governing body, Fifa, tells SportToday he was in his 30s and had controlled a Premier League match in which Manchester United lost 1-0 to Sunderland.
The Red Devils' manager, Tommy Docherty, was pleased despite his team stumbling because his son, Mick Docherty, was playing for the winning side.
On investigation, he learned of a ``young referee'' who had done a splendid job but what bothered Docherty was that he had never heard of him before.
Hackett explains: ``I'm on cloud nine, thinking refereeing is fantastic. I change and go into the foyer.
``I walked out to my car, almost feeling like John Wayne, seven foot high and haven't I done well,'' the referee from Sheffield says. As he got to his vehicle a youngster, wrapped snugly in a red-and-white scarf, approached him and very politely asked Hackett for his autograph on the match programme.
``I'm taken aback because no one had ever asked me for it before.
``So I write my best wishes and think, no, the players write it much better than that. So I go,'Best wishes, Keith Hackett, referee'.''
The youngster smiled, looked him straight in the eyes, took the programme and ripped it up in the referee's face, before snarling: ``You're rubbish.''
Hackett says with a grin: ``So that game was really memorable, not for the game itself.
``That youngster gave me a good old royal kick up the backside within a matter of 30 to 40 minutes after the game.''
Playing in different countries brings back fond memories for him. He highlights the last reunification match on the Eastern Bloc as one, where he saw the Berlin Wall demolished.
In Mexico, there was the ritual of people pouring cold water at halftime into his eyes and stuffing a small pipe into his nose to feed him what he learned afterwards was oxygen.
``Mexicans eat chillies like peanuts and all the oohs and aahs in the game emitted chilli heat into the atmosphere and that stings the eyes.''
He also recalled walking across Checkpoint Charlie from West Germany to referee East Germany playing against Switzerland in the early 1980s.
``It was unreal, like a James Bond movie,'' he says, reflecting on a German bloke who spoke English with an American accent he had picked from watching TV.
``Some years ago President Kennedy gave his big speech and we listened to that but he couldn't cross Checkpoint Charlie. You can,'' the German said.
``It's pretty remarkable, Mr Hackett, that football opens doors around the world that other things like politics don't achieve.''
SOCCER: Putdown top ref will never forget
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