Graham Poll presided over his last game in English football on Monday and for once did not have a negative impact on the game. His final game will be the Finland v Belgium Euro 2008 qualifier next week. Rob Bagchi, writing in The Guardian, lamented Poll's retirement saying: “The English game's most high-profile referee of the past decade will be missed…”

Having courted controversy throughout his career (he has a regular coloumn in the Daily Telegraph), Poll has decided to end it with comments to the BBC about his sending off of John Terry last November. In many ways the most publicity-hungry ref of all time had to retire in a blaze of publicity.

Poll will most likely be remembered for his “three-card trick” at the 2006 World Cup but it is easy to forget that “The Thing from Tring” was regarded as one of the best referees in the English game. He was the English representative at two World Cups and at Euro 2000. He also took charge of a UEFA Cup Final, an FA Cup Final, a League Cup Final and presided over a number of big Premiership games (in 2005-6 he officiated both Arsenal - Manchester United games).

Sadly, as he admitted himself, his international career lurched from one crisis to another. After Poll officiated the Italy-Czech Republic game at the 2002 World Cup, Christian Vieri said: "Those weren't division one or even division two officials, they were village officials." 

It is widely thought that a referee has a good game if he goes unnoticed. Poll had a happy knack of having good games and still becoming the focus of attention. During this year's UEFA Cup semi-final he seemed to urge the Sevilla players at half-time (it can be seen at the start of this video). This incident has gone largely unnoticed but is indicative of his strange behaviour.

He even managed to alienate fellow referees. Jeff Winter, another former Premiership referee who also courts media attention, spoke out on behalf of Robbie Savage after the then Birmingham midfielder was charged by the FA for using Poll's toilet. "The referee in question was not one of my favourite people… in fact, anyone who cr*ps in Poll's toilet can't be all bad."

Poll did make the occasional good decision; unfortunately for him they have now largely been forgotten. Thanks to Sky TV every decision made by a referee is scrutinised to a massive degree, and in many ways Poll has shown that it is almost impossible for a referee to have a top-flight career free of error. Ironically he is rumoured to be close to agreeing a deal to become a Sky Sports pundit next season.

The career of Poll is perhaps the strongest argument yet for video evidence to be used in football. Here are three of his finest moments, which all could have been reversed had there been a “third umpire” watching a TV in the stands. 

1. Croatia 2 Australia 2 (World Cup, June 22, 2006) “The Three card trick” – showing Croatian defender Josep Simunic three yellow cards before he sent him off is what Poll will be remembered for. This failure was so bad that disallowing a perfectly good goal from John Aloisi in the last seconds of the game was completely ignored.
2. Portsmouth 0 Arsenal 0 (Premiership, May 13, 2007) Paul Newman in the Independent summed it up nicely: “Controversial to the last, Graham Poll left Premiership football with the boos of Portsmouth supporters ringing in his ears. The 43-year-old referee, in charge of what is expected to be his final top-flight match, denied the home side a goal which could have taken Harry Redknapp's team into the UEFA Cup. Portsmouth came off the field to discover that other results meant they would have qualified if Poll had not ruled out Niko Kranjcar's 68th-minute effort.”

3. Everton 0 Liverpool 0 (Premiership, April 21, 2000) In stoppage time, Poll disallowed a bizarre goal from Don Hutchison, who had diverted the ball into the Liverpool net after Sander Westerveld had hit a free-kick into his back. Poll could have taken the easy way out and said Hutchison was not 10 yards away from the free-kick. Instead he claimed he had blown for full-time when the ball was in the air. Everton manager Walter Smith accused him of "taking the easy way out".