Six Red Cards in One Game = Retirement for Scottish Footballer

Couldn’t quite believe my eyes when I spotted this story in Unprofessional Foul’s Backpasses collection of links yesterday. An amateur footballer in Scotland was apparently sent off six times in one game last year. Six times! Paul Cooper, 39, was playing for Hawick United in the Border Amateur League in November 2009, when he received a second yellow for dissent and was sent off.

Not great, but a two game ban and you’re back, right? Wrong. Cooper argued (presumably quite forcefully and using some very bad words) with the ref, and so said ref sent him off five more times. Just to make sure.

“I completely overreacted after I had been sent off and I know I said things to the referee I should not have,” he said. “But I felt so frustrated as I honestly wasn’t to blame for the incident that led to me being sent off.

“After the game I went to see the referee in his dressing room and I apologised to him for losing it and he accepted the apology.”

Cooper’s punishment for his half-dozen red cards was a lengthly two-year ban from football. Two years. Which, bearing in mind that Cooper is 39, basically means the end of his footballing career. Or as Cooper himself put it: “I will just have to go with the flow, accept things and find something else to do on a Saturday.”

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Category: World Football