LIVERPOOL V MANCHESTER CITY - MEET THE REFEREE
Graham Poll of Tring will referee Liverpool's first Anfield game of the season against Manchester City this coming Saturday.
The 41-year old is one of the Premiership's most experienced officials, with only Dermot Gallagher of the current crop of referees having more years under his belt. Poll though is now the only official in the Premiership to have appeared in both World Cup and European Championship tournaments. He was in Japan for the World Cup, and two years previously he was in the middle for the Euro2000 tournament.
Poll has not been one of our luckier officials over the years and we have to go back to November 2001 to find our last Premiership win at Anfield with him in the middle. He was though the referee when we beat Newcastle United 2-1 in the FA Cup last season.
He has refereed a match between Liverpool and Manchester City before back in our treble winning season of 2000/01, as he was in the middle when we beat City 4-2 in the FA Cup. We have a few survivors from that game: Stéphane Henchoz, Sami Hyypiä, Jamie Carragher, Igor Bišcan, Dietmar Hamann and Vladimír Šmicer. Only three names are still playing for City from that day, Nicky Weaver, Richard Dunne and on the bench that day was a very young Shaun Wright-Phillips.
Graham showed the yellow card 114 times last season in 42 games, but only sent off 4 players.
On Saturday his assistants will be Des Morrison and Martyn Short, whilst Chris Foy will be the fourth official
