On the eve of the Australian Open, Eurosport aired a documentary about John McEnroe’s explosive disqualification from the tournament in 1990. No player had been ejected from a Grand Slam tournament in 27 years, not even McEnroe, whose on-court baiting of match officials and prepubescent tantrums had offended the game’s manners for more than a decade.
McEnroe was disqualified during his fourth-round match against the Swede Mickael Pernfors. His first offence generated a warning for unsportsmanlike conduct when, at a changeover, he stopped in front of a lineswoman who he thought had made a bad call and glared at her, thuggishly, while bouncing the ball on his racket.
His next misdemeanour was smashing his racket, which he did twice before being docked a point. This sparked a furious reaction from McEnroe, who started swearing at the referee and demanding to speak to Ken Farrar, the Grand Slam chief of supervisors. When Farrar arrived, McEnroe continued in the same vein, and with Farrar’s authorisation, the referee disqualified McEnroe.
McEnroe stood with his hands on his hips, silent for once, and looking bewildered. At the beginning of that year the rules on abusing match officials had been stiffened; not by much, but in this case, it had made all the difference. Up to that point, a player could not be ejected from a match until their fourth offence. Nobody had told McEnroe.
Mauricio Pochettino picks combustible player for questionable US experiment
Coco Gauff and Taylor Fritz give US a double threat at Australian Open
Some threw toilet rolls - others, sausages. How it might look if you were a fly on the wall at Mack Hansen’s Media Training
From Cork to Carlton and back: Ciáran Sheehan’s life in the GAA-Aussie rules fast lane
After three episodes of abominable behaviour, he still believed he was under the quota. Just like in the criminal justice system, ignorance is no defence.
In the documentary, McEnroe’s agent and a tournament official berated themselves for not informing McEnroe of the rule change. But why should that matter? Why should McEnroe think it was acceptable to intimidate match officials on two occasions, and thrash his racket on another, without suffering the ultimate sanction? Essentially, a level of tolerance was built into the system. Match officials were supposed to absorb a certain amount of nuclear radiation from players.
McEnroe was red meat for stand-up comics, and Spitting Image and a generation of mimics; he inspired a million tabloid headlines; he brought a bit of the Sex Pistols to a game that was played to Simon and Garfunkel audiences. And he was portrayed as an outlier. A one-off.
The reality is more nuanced: there is a piece of McEnroe in all of us. Every one of us has responded to a match official’s decision like McEnroe would have in his pomp. Maybe the match official couldn’t hear us in a crowd of thousands. That didn’t stop us screaming like Johnny Rotten.
[ John McEnroe: ‘I saw myself as part of punk’Opens in new window ]
The other thing to remember about McEnroe was that his rage and his bullying behaviour weren’t entirely without calculation. No matter how badly he behaved towards match officials he recognised the line between self-harm and self-interest. In Melbourne in 1990, he didn’t miscount how many lives he had left, he just didn’t know that the goalposts had shifted.
In all sports, players and managers tread that line with match officials. How much will this referee tolerate? How can we bend the ref to our will?
On this issue there are regular tipping points. It is less than three years since soccer referees in Dublin went on strike because of the abuse they routinely suffered. It emerged last week that Dublin GAA is experiencing a recruitment crisis. Red flags were also raised by the GAA’s Munster council. The Connacht and Ireland wing Mack Hansen was given a three-match suspension for derogatory comments he made about rugby referees; he apologised.
[ ‘Chronic shortage’ of referees leaves Dublin GAA stretched to the limitOpens in new window ]
In an interview before Christmas the former Premier League referee Mick Dean said that his daughter had received “death threats” on social media because of decisions he had made on the pitch. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have given up refereeing on their social media channels. Their preference is for a dystopian free-for-all.
But when these tipping points come and go, does anything change? In a world where free speech is liable to be conflated with hate speech, and people think they’re at liberty to say what they like to a ref, how can we protect the space around match officials? How can we make it bearable?
In this context, rugby is the most vivid weathervane. I bought Ref Link on the first day that it was available for a Test match in Lansdowne Road, nearly 30 years ago. What I remember still is the deference of Mick Galwey every time he interacted with the referee. He was one of the toughest guys on the field, but his relationship with the ref was that of a master and schoolboy.
The tone of that player-ref dialogue changed over time, thankfully. Referees were encouraged to explain their decisions, and team captains were given more license to engage. But as access expanded so did the temperature of the exchanges. Some captains started to overstep the mark, and other players more inclined to step out of their lane; more questioning and low-level insubordination crept into the game.
Wayne Barnes, the retired rugby referee, devoted a chapter of his autobiography to the 2013 Premiership final in which he sent off Dylan Hartley for calling him “a cheat”. The Northampton captain had been picked for the Lions tour of Australia, which was due to begin a week later, but because of his suspension he missed out.
There were people who felt the punishment was rough and disproportionate to the offence, but the sending off was entirely within the letter of the law and the spirit of it. In the last decade of his career, Barnes never had to deal with a situation like that again.
The only way to catalyse meaningful change is with painful consequences. To change behaviours rules must be enforced. In the laws of rugby referees can still advance the ball 10 metres for dissent; Pierre Brousset did so in Thomond Park on Saturday, but that law is hardly ever applied. In Gaelic football, dissent can result in a black card, but when was the last time you saw that?
In the new Gaelic football rules, referees can advance the ball 50 metres for dissent. It is a brilliant initiative that is potentially game-changing, if it is enforced fearlessly. Teams will feel it. Scores will come of it. Players and managers will re-examine the line between self-harm and self-interest.
McEnroe never changed. There was too much tolerance in the system for his behaviour.
