November 8 – Who’s the Pisshead in the Black?

FOOTBALL and booze have got a long history together. Whether it’s George Best lamenting that “I spent a lot of money on booze birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered,” England’s infamous Euro ’96 dentist chair celebration or Paul McGrath turning out half-tanked, the two have always gone hand-in-hand. Most of the time though, football’s drinking culture doesn’t involve the referee, but today in 1975 German official Wolf-Dieter Ahlenfelder turned up to officiate a Bundesliga clash after a few too many pre-match shandies.

Here at OTFD we’ll admit to the occasional drink or two to settle the nerves before something important such as a relegation six-pointer or those hot dates we’re always going on (honest guv). However, we’d like to think that those in charge of the German FA look for a bit more professionalism in their employees. Obviously not.

When Hannover 96 came to the Weserstadion to take on Werder Bremen fans were settling down to a run of the mill Bundesliga clash, with the usual smattering of dodgy decisions by the ref. When Ahlenfelder blew for half time 29 minutes into the game, it became clear that he wasn’t all there. His linesman had a word with him and after Ahlenfelder thanked him and told him he was his best *hic* mate, the further 16 first half minutes were played out.

During half-time he showed no signs of sobering up, as he stuck out his tongue at a photographer, but did manage to see the game through to it’s nil-nil conclusion. As all good drunks do, he immediately denied that he had been on the sauce, but later confessed to ‘several Maltesers’ before the game. ‘We are men – we don’t drink Fanta’, he would later state, much to the respect of his beerhouse dwelling contempories and the chagrin of Fanta’s marketing department.

Werder president Franz BÃ¶hmert didn’t take it too badly as he thought that ‘for this show we could have charged a higher entrance fee.’ Luckily for him, there’s no footage of Ahlenfelder’s drinking session out there, so check out this referee’s inappropriate celebration below and join us tomorrow to look at a man who looks like he could take his drink.