Darren Cann built a career out of judging football’s finest margins, trusted with the tightest offside calls on the biggest stages — from the World Cup and Champions League finals to the Premier League.
Recalling a lighter moment from a behind-closed-doors match during the pandemic, he smiles at the memory of an international footballer standing next to the defensive wall at a free-kick for his team.
“The referee said to him, ‘please, you need to be one metre away’,” Cann says. “And the player said, ‘is that because of Covid?’
‘No,’ the referee said. ‘It’s because of the laws of the game.'”
It was one of many glimpses into a side of football we rarely hear about – the view from the officials, where, as modest Cann puts it, the players are “the most important people”.
He moved quietly through more than 1,000 matches, including 579 in the Premier League – a tally bettered only by a handful of the competition’s most enduring names, including Gareth Barry, James Milner, Ryan Giggs and Frank Lampard. His consistency earned him respect across two decades at the highest levels of the game.
Master of the margins
To sharpen judgment, he trained his eye to work faster than the game itself. “I recorded hundreds of football matches and watched them back in twice the speed,” he explains. “The players are moving much faster, the ball’s moving faster. And I try and judge the offsides in fast forward. And if you get good at doing that, when it comes to a game on a Saturday afternoon, everything seems so much slower.”
Preparation was just as detailed. “I analysed the last 30 set-pieces – attacking and defending for both teams – and for attacking free-kicks as well,” he says. “How teams defend, how they attack – anything that might lead to an offside situation I need to anticipate.”
Understanding the players
Cann’s feel for the game came not only from studying but from having played it. He played youth football at Crystal Palace and Norwich City, lining up alongside Sir Gareth Southgate during his Palace days. That experience gave him “empathy with players” – an understanding of their instincts and frustrations that helped him when making split-second decisions as an official.
Despite what some fans might assume, the 56-year-old insists referees are just as passionate about their roles. “We really do care about the game,” he says. “We work hard, we train hard, and we do everything we can to get every decision right.”
His passion extended to five-a-side games as part of training with his former PGMOL colleagues. “I think Michael Oliver would like me to say he is the best footballer among the referees, so I will! We get together on a regular basis and interestingly, everyone wants to play – no one wants to referee that game.”
The impact of technology
Cann’s career spanned the arrival of VAR and, more recently, semi-automated offside systems, but his approach on the pitch stayed the same.
“We don’t referee any differently now that we have VAR,” he says. “Our mindset when we go out onto the field is to eradicate the VAR from those 90 minutes by getting our decisions right.”
He welcomes the arrival of semi-automated offsides, especially the improvement in speed. “The technology will speed up those checks,” he says. “It’s heading in the right direction – but as always, the aim is still to get every decision correct first time without needing VAR.”
Highlights, hard games and history
Recalling game No 1 of the 579, Cann’s Premier League debut came at Upton Park in 2005: West Ham United vs Bolton Wanderers. “I was nervous, but luckily it went well,” he says.
At the other end of the scale, two matches move clear of the rest in his memory. In 2010, Cann was part of the only refereeing team ever appointed to both the Champions League final and World Cup final in the same year, alongside Howard Webb and Michael Mullarkey.
“They are the pinnacle of a player’s career and also a match official’s career,” he says. “We are immensely proud of that.”
The Champions League final, the first played on a Saturday night, was a particularly smooth performance. “It was one of those rare games where there aren’t really any errors from the referee or either assistant,” he recalls. “There were no wrong offsides, no wrong free-kick or penalty calls. It went perfectly for us.”
The World Cup final between Spain and the Netherlands was a very different test. The match produced 13 yellow cards – a record for a final – and saw Dutch defender John Heitinga sent off after receiving two bookings.
“It needed refereeing – and Howard did brilliantly to manage it,” Cann says. “Both teams desperately wanted to win because neither had won a World Cup before. It was probably the hardest two hours of my career, but still an amazing memory.”
Tributes and retirement
When Cann stepped away from the professional game following the recent Manchester City vs Crystal Palace fixture, the scale of appreciation surprised even him. “I’ve had hundreds of messages from respected people in the game – from journalists, commentators, ex-players, ex-managers, as well as lots of people from the refereeing fraternities,” he says. “It’s been really humbling.”
A surprise retirement dinner, organised by friend Webb, provided a moment he will never forget. “Howard had put together a video montage of people from across football who all sent their best wishes,” Cann explains. “One was Sir Gareth Southgate. He sent me a wonderful video message, which was personal and very humbling to receive.”
The fastest and the funniest
When it came to speed and the struggle to keep up with players, one stood out. “Thierry Henry. Moving with the ball, past defenders – and sadly past me too,” Cann says with a smile.
There were lighter moments off the pitch too, like during the warm-up before a Chelsea vs Liverpool game at Stamford Bridge.
“Howard was the referee and a young lad of about eight or nine years old asked him: ‘Please can I have an autograph?'” Cann recalls. “Howard went over, the fan handed him the book and pen, and as Howard started to write, the boy said: ‘No, can you get me Fernando Torres’s autograph, please?’ That was quite amusing.”
Liverpool were also involved on the day he “never heard a noise in a stadium like it”, as Steven Gerrard powered home from long range to turn around a memorable FA Cup final against West Ham.
Away from football, Cann even found unexpected recognition when he appeared as a contestant on the game show Pointless. “Richard Osman came over before recording, said he knew what I did for a living, and spoke to me for several minutes. Such a lovely man.”
One regret and one change
What if Cann could alter one law of the game? “I would only allow the captains to speak to the referee,” he says. “That would send a good message to the grassroots level as well, because sometimes we get situations where players surround the referee. I don’t think that’s a good image for the game. It worked extremely well in the Euros.”
As for regrets? Just one and still vivid. “That was an offside I got wrong in my first season on the Premier League,” he says. “I won’t tell you the two teams because I’ll probably upset some supporters, but I did get it wrong by about half a yard. It was one of those where the forward and defender cross over at the moment the ball’s kicked, and I just called it wrong. That decision still upsets me today.”
The final fall
Despite the pressure of top-level officiating, Cann was always able to see the funny side. In his final season, he suffered the first and only comedy fall of his Premier League career.
“I got my studs caught in the turf and fell sideways, like Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses,” he says. “It was extremely embarrassing.”
Keeping his balance was usually less of a problem – at least during his pre-match ritual. “I always practised my flag signals before I went out for the match,” he says. “Much to the amusement of my colleagues, I stood in front of a mirror making sure that my flag is perfect – because when you’re giving a throw-in or an offside, the last thing you want to be worrying about is whether the flag is in the correct position.
“The referee surprisingly supplies the flags – even at grassroots level it would be the referee that brings the two flags and hands them to each of the two assistants. So again on the Premier League I don’t carry a flag. We just handed them back in at the end of the day.”
Cann does, however, have a long-serving practice flag at home – the same one he has used for the past 25 years. That and the earlier talk of David Jason’s character falling through a bar inevitably conjured the image of Trigger’s broom, when the character famously declared: “I’ve maintained it for 20 years. This old broom has had 17 new heads and 14 new handles in its time.”
“That was a great line,” Cann said, offering the most perfect of assistant referee puns.
