Benjamin Mervyn "Sandy" Griffiths (17 January 1909 – 21 January 1974) was a Welsh

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 ...

from

Abertillery Abertillery (; ) is a town and community (Wales), community in Blaenau Gwent County Borough, Wales. It is located in the Ebbw Fach Valley, Ebbw Fach valley, and the Monmouthshire (historic), historic county of Monmouthshire. The surrounding lan ...

Monmouthshire Monmouthshire ( ; ) is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the South East Wales, south east of Wales. It borders Powys to the north; the English counties of Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the north and east; the Severn Estuary to the s ...

. In his professional life he was a teacher.

Career

He first took up a teaching post in

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

but soon returned to Newport and began his refereeing career in 1934 in local leagues. Within five seasons he was appointed to

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 ...

list as a linesman and, after the War, refereed the

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

versus

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

clash in 1949, and then the

1953 FA Cup Final The 1953 FA Cup final, also known as the Matthews Final, was the eighth to be held at Wembley Stadium after the Second World War. The football match was contested between Blackpool and Bolton Wanderers, with Blackpool winning 4–3, equalling the ...

, otherwise known as the Matthews Final. It was his decision, with two minutes remaining, that enabled Stan Mortensen to equalise from a free-kick awarded just outside the penalty area. Griffiths represented Wales at the

1950 Events January * January 1 – The International Police Association (IPA) – the largest police organization in the world – is formed. * January 5 – 1950 Sverdlovsk plane crash, Sverdlovsk plane crash: ''Aeroflot'' Lisunov Li-2 ...

1954 Events January * January 3 – The Italian broadcaster RAI officially begins transmitting. * January 7 – Georgetown–IBM experiment: The first public demonstration of a machine translation system is held in New York, at the head ...

and 1958 World Cup Finals. In the first of these he appeared in the opening fixture, and in the second took charge of the semi-final between

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

, and assisting William Ling in the final. In the closing minutes of the match, and with the score at 3–2 to the West Germans, Griffiths flagged Hungary's

Ferenc Puskás Ferenc Puskás (, ; né Purczeld; 1 April 1927 – 17 November 2006) was a Hungarian footballer and manager, widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and the sport's first international superstar. A forward and an attacking ...

offside, just as he beat Toni Turek in the German goal.A number of sports historians, including the Turek biographer Werner Raupp, tend to assume that the goal was a regular goal. Raupp refers to the German substitutes who were sitting at the same height, especially Alfred Pfaff of

Eintracht Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a German professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The club currently plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German footb ...

, as well as to more recent

footage In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a digital video camera, which typically must be film editing, edited to create a motion picture, digital video, video cli ...

(e.g. German TV: ZDF, 4 July 2004: „Das Wunder von Bern“). See: Werner Raupp: Toni Turek – „Fußballgott“. Eine Biographie, Hildesheim: Arete Verlag 2019 (ISBN 978-3-96423-008-9), p. 111-114. He was the first Welshman to referee an international at Wembley, the first from his country to referee an

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 ...

, and the only Welshman to appear in a

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

final.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Griffiths, Mervyn 1909 births Sportspeople from Abertillery Welsh football referees FA Cup final referees FIFA World Cup finals match officials 1974 deaths 1958 FIFA World Cup referees 1950 FIFA World Cup referees