Howard King (born 1 September 1946) is a former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

in the English

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

and

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

. He also served on the

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peop ...

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

List. He was based in

Merthyr Tydfil Merthyr Tydfil (; cy, Merthyr Tudful ) is the main town in Merthyr Tydfil County Borough, Wales, administered by Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council. It is about north of Cardiff. Often called just Merthyr, it is said to be named after Tydf ...

which was also home to

Leo Callaghan Leo Callaghan (5 February 1924 – 8 January 1987) was an association football referee in the English Football League. He was also a Welsh FIFA referee. Career Callaghan was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales. He made the Football League refere ...

, one of only three Welsh referees to control the English FA Cup Final.

Career

Domestic

King became a Football League linesman in 1977 and three years later was promoted to the referees List, aged thirty three. He featured quite frequently in the top division over the next few years and was selected as one of the first Premier League referees for 1992–93 while also continuing to referee Football League matches. His first ever match in the Premier League was the 2–1 home win by

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English footbal ...

over

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

at Highfield Road on 15 August 1992. King served two years on the Premier List. In December 1993 he handled a fourth round replay in the

English League Cup The EFL Cup (referred to historically, and colloquially, as the League Cup), currently known as the Carabao Cup for sponsorship reasons, is an annual knockout competition and major trophy in men's domestic football in England. Organised by the ...

which saw

Wimbledon Wimbledon most often refers to: * Wimbledon, London, a district of southwest London * Wimbledon Championships, the oldest tennis tournament in the world and one of the four Grand Slam championships Wimbledon may also refer to: Places London * ...

(now

MK Dons Milton Keynes Dons Football Club (), usually abbreviated to MK Dons, is a professional association football club based in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The team competes in , the third tier of the English football league system. The ...

) beat

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

4–3 on

penalties Penalty or The Penalty may refer to: Sports * Penalty (golf) * Penalty (gridiron football) * Penalty (ice hockey) * Penalty (rugby) * Penalty (rugby union) * Penalty kick (association football) * Penalty shoot-out (association football) * Penalty ...

after a 2–2 draw following

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played onl ...

. This proved to be his final game. He was having injury problems, as he had at various points in his career, and as a result left the List at the end of season 1993–94, a year before he was due to reach retirement age.

International & Europe

Internationally, he refereed the

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

against

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

Home International at

Wembley Wembley () is a large suburbIn British English, "suburb" often refers to the secondary urban centres of a city. Wembley is not a suburb in the American sense, i.e. a single-family residential area outside of the city itself. in north-west Londo ...

in 1983. He also regularly refereed in Europe. In February 1981 he officiated at the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

versus

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

World Cup qualifying match for the 1982 tournament. His most senior club competition tie came in the 1983–84 season with a

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store Solid, solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, porcela ...

quarter-final A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

first leg between Sparta Prague and

Hajduk Split Hrvatski nogometni klub Hajduk Split, commonly referred to as Hajduk Split () or simply Hajduk, is a Croatian professional football club based in Split, that competes in the Croatian First League, the top tier in Croatian football. Since 1979, t ...

. He controlled two

European Championships The European Championships is a multi-sport tournament which brings together the existing European Championships of some of the continent's leading sports every four years. The inaugural edition in 2018 was staged by the host cities of Berlin, ...

qualifiers –

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

versus

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

in 1986 and, coincidentally, in 1991 the same teams again, this time in

Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of ...

.European Championships qualifying match
, Norway v. USSR, 1991: ''srcf.ucam.org'' statistical website. Shortly afterwards, he retired compulsorily from the FIFA list due to age restrictions.

Personal life

King was married to Sian and has three kids. In 1995 King was given a ten-year ban from any involvement in football after he admitted accepting prostitutes from clubs. In 2005 King was reported to police after being spotted in a taxi cab parked at Garwnant Woodlands Park, an area notorious for people meeting up to take part in or watch sex.

References

Print

*Football League Handbooks, 1977–1979 *Rothmans Football Yearbooks, 1980–1994 *Ionescu, Romeo (2003) The Complete Results & Line-Ups of the European Football Championships 1958–2003, Soccer Books Limited. *Ionescu, Romeo (2004) The Complete Results & Line-Ups of the European Champions Clubs' Cup 1955–1991, Soccer Books Limited. *Ionescu, Romeo (2004) The Complete Results & Line-Ups of the European Cup Winners Cup 1960–1999, Soccer Books Limited. *Ionescu, Romeo (2004) The Complete Results & Line-Ups of the UEFA Cup 1971–1991, Soccer Books Limited.

Internet

External links

Howard King Referee Statistics
at soccerbase.com (1992-1993 only) {{DEFAULTSORT:King, Howard 1946 births Welsh football referees Sportspeople from Merthyr Tydfil Living people