Keith Stuart Hackett (born 22 June 1944) is an English former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other title ...

, who began refereeing in local leagues in the

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

area in 1960. He is counted amongst the top 100 referees of all time in a list maintained by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS). Keith is currently the president of non-league club Penistone Church F

Career

He reached the

Northern Premier League The Northern Premier League is an English Association football, football league that was founded in 1968. Together with the Isthmian League and the Southern Football League, Southern League it forms levels seven and eight of the English footba ...

and became a

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in Association football around the world, the w ...

linesman in 1972. Three years later he advanced to the Supplementary List of referees and one year later in 1976 to the full List at the age of only thirty two. He made progress and in 1979 was senior linesman to Ron Challis in the

FA Cup Final The FA Cup Final is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football events in the world, with an official attendance of 89,472 ...

. The next season, he took charge of an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

semi-final between

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and

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

. The match required a replay, which he also handled, but that ended all-square as well, and two further replays were required to separate the teams. The following season saw him step up to the ultimate domestic honour of the 1981 FA Cup Final at

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in the London Borou ...

, finishing 1–1 between Spurs and

Manchester City Manchester City Football Club is a professional association football, football club based in Manchester, England, that competes in the Premier League, the English football league system, top flight of Football in England, English footbal ...

. Aged only thirty six at the time, he was one of the youngest Cup Final referees. Tommy Hutchison of City scored both goals, causing the game to go to a replay, which Hackett also refereed at Wembley, the game ending 3–2 to Tottenham. He was then appointed to the

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

List for the following season of 1981–82. He was then appointed to the 1984 Charity Shield match, in which Everton defeated

1–0, courtesy of a Bruce Grobbelaar own goal. In 1986, he refereed the League Cup Final, where

Oxford United Oxford United Football Club () is a professional association football, football club based in Oxford, England. The club compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football league system, English football. Founded as Headingto ...

beat QPR 3–0, thus winning their only knockout trophy. Internationally, he was a match official at the 1988 European Championships, in which he took control of

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's 1–1 draw with

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in Group A on 10 June at the Rheinstadion. Hackett also officiated at the 1988 Olympic Football Tournament, handling the semi-final between

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

and West Germany, which Brazil won on penalties following a 1–1 scoreline after

extra time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only if the game is required t ...

. He refereed the 1990–91 league encounter between

Manchester United Manchester United Football Club, commonly referred to as Man United (often stylised as Man Utd) or simply United, is a professional association football, football club based in Old Trafford (area), Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, Engl ...

and

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, a match notorious for the 21-man brawl breaking out just after the hour mark. The melee resulted in Arsenal being docked two points and Manchester United one by

The Football Association The Football Association (the FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest footb ...

, upon a three-hour consultation with Hackett and his match officials. He continued to be one of the senior English referees, even after his retirement on age grounds from the FIFA List at the end of 1991. Although he reached the English retirement age at the end of the 1991–92 season, he was granted an extension and was one of the first set of

Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

referees for its inaugural 1992–93 campaign. He was granted another extra season on top of this before retiring just short of his 50th birthday in 1994.

In retirement

He later worked as a referees' assessor before, on 1 March 2004, he was appointed

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

of the Professional Game Match Officials Board, replacing Philip Don. Hackett has also worked to promote knowledge of refereeing via several publications. He published his own book, ''Hackett's Law; a Referee's Notebook!'' in 1986. And he continued to provide the answers for cult classic cartoon quiz You Are The Ref, drawn by sports artist Paul Trevillion, which he has done since the 1970s - originally for ''Shoot'' magazine, and then for

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

newspaper. He co-authored a book with Trevillion celebrating 50 years of the strip in December 2006. And from August 2008,

's collection of ''You Are The Ref'' strips appeared online at guardian.co.uk. In early 2007, Hackett also produced a DVD-ROM with Trevillion called ''Referee Academy'', for use in the training of match officials, with

sanction A sanction may be either a permission or a restriction, depending upon context, as the word is an auto-antonym. Examples of sanctions include: Government and law * Sanctions (law), penalties imposed by courts * Economic sanctions, typically a ba ...

from the FA,

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, it is the oldest football league in the world, and was the top-level football league in England from ...

and the

. During the 2007–08 season, he also wrote a regular column in the matchday programme for Crystal Palace and now writes for various football news websites about refereeing decisions.

References

Print

*Football League Handbooks, 1972–1975 *Rothmans Football Yearbooks, 1976–1994 *Keith Hackett (1986) Hackett's Law, Collins Willow *Gilbert Upton (2005) Football League and Premiership Referees 1888 to 2005, Soccerdata

Internet

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hackett, Keith Living people 1944 births Sportspeople from Sheffield English football referees FA Cup final referees English Football League referees Premier League referees UEFA Euro 1988 referees