Where Valentine is concerned, it really has been the top. He was the man in the middle at the infamous "Anschluss game" between West Germany and Austria in the 1982 World Cup. He was also running the (other) line 13 days later when Harald Schumacher attempted to behead Patrick Battiston as the Frenchman prepared to lob the German goalkeeper. "In fairness there was not much protest in the stadium about that challenge," Valentine says now. "The French manager came into our dressing room after the game. There was no: 'what about that?' It looked worse on television than it did on the field."
Although he retired from the senior game in 1989 it is a tribute to Valentine that he has continued to make a contribution to refereeing both in this country and abroad. He stopped refereeing before the rule banning the back pass had even been conceived. Yet Valentine has moved with the times. Even now, when asked to reflect on his first foreign assignment, he uses the correct modern term to describe himself as an "assistant referee" at a match between Barcelona and Lugano in 1968. The referee he assisted in this European Cup-Winners' Cup match was Jack Gordon. Valentine had never been abroad prior to this trip to Spain and had to quickly arrange to get a passport. However, he would go on to eclipse all other Scottish referees.
"I have one claim to fame that no other referee in Scotland has," says Valentine, now 72. "I have refereed at five major international tournaments. Willie Collum, one of our young up and coming referees, is going away to referee at the World Under 20 championships in Colombia. That was my first tournament in 1981, in Australia. I also refereed at the Olympic Games as well as at the World Cup and at two European championship finals. Five major world tournaments. No other referee did that."
It has been an exceptional career. Only now has the whistle been blown. Valentine and colleague Kenny Hope both retired as referee observers at the Scottish Football Association's referee training camp last weekend, in St Andrews. Valentine only stopped working for Uefa in various capacities in 2010. "When I started refereeing I thought it would take me round the public parks in Dundee," he says. "It's been quite astonishing. I remember my first game. It was on Caird Park. It was an under-18 game between Milton Rangers and Ashvale. I had started refereeing when I was 21. I was a goalkeeper at school and boys' brigade and in amateur football. But I decided I was not going to make a career there. So I thought I would try refereeing, never honestly dreaming I would ever be among the elite." There is no doubt that he deserves to be included in the top bracket of referees produced by Britain. Valentine has officiated in such bear pits as the Bernabeu - at a European Cup tie between Real Madrid and Juventus - and at Red Star Belgrade, who were hosting Barcelona, Maradona et al. He considers it to be his greatest privilege to have been on the pitch for France's 5-0 drubbing of Belgium in the 1984 European Championship finals, won by a stylish French team including the likes of Michel Platini, Alain Giresse and Jean Tigana. "Belgium were no slouches either," he says. "If there had been a World Cup that year, France would have won it."
He has tales to tell, some of them surreal. He recalls the aforementioned match between West Germany and Austria. It was played at walking pace after West Germany took an early lead through Horst Hrubesch. The 1-0 result meant both countries would qualify for the next stage at the expense of Algeria, who as well as beating West Germany in their opening game had also defeated Chile the day before the two old rivals colluded in one of football's most shameful episodes. "It was my first ever World Cup tie," recalls Valentine. "As you can imagine it was a huge occasion for me. And it was a massive game to be given - it was like Scotland v England, a local derby. When I was handed the game it obviously was not known that Algeria were going to beat West Germany. It took me about 30 minutes to realise that the game was not going anywhere. I refereed the game in front of me. It's all I could do.”
The same could not be said of his first senior match as a referee. It was 1971, Valentine was 31 years old. East Fife were hosting East Stirlingshire at Bayview. "East Fife scored a goal in the first minute and the whole of the East Stirling team surrounded me, telling me it was offside," he recalls. "It was a quick welcome to the joys of refereeing, I can tell you."
Source: The Scotsman
