George Harrison was the Beatles’ central midfielder. An inspired one, to be sure, otherwise it would be difficult to explain his having bequeathed us Something and Here Comes the Sun. But a central midfielder nonetheless. As for Paul McCartney, he played inside forward, while John Lennon was indubitably the left winger. With two such prodigies up front, the Fab Four could even afford to tolerate Ringo Starr, the authentic Carlos Gamarra of the situation (fastest own-goal ever in the history of the World Cup finals), in the line-up.

If you think about it, this transfer of imagery from the world of sport can be extended to entire families, offices, editorial staffs, clubs and recreational groups, and not only in relation to team formations. Some individuals, for example, are born referees. You all know who I’m talking about: whenever an altercation arises, these are the people whose disagreeable whistles our ears are invariably compelled to accommodate. By “whistle”, of course, I do not mean an audible acoustic wave, since the piercing noise can take the form of a wink, a glance, silence, a grimace or a certain inclination of the head. The man born to be a ref (or the woman, since many females have been achieving excellent results in this area) is someone who likes to call the shots, who gets a kick out of laying down the rules, making truces and generally getting people to reach agreement. In short, it is a person who makes a vocation out of conflict resolution. The referee’s motto is: “I reconcile”.

Depending on their personality traits, or on which side of the bed they happened to get out of that morning, in order to settle a controversy (an activity, by the way, that begets a certain level of physical gratification in them), referees adopt now placatory now abrasive tones. They then proceed to mete out either direct or indirect punishment, chastisements and the occasional sending to Coventry. In the latter case, he (or she) subsequently arranges a get-together with her (or his) conscience with a view to resolving on the duration of the match ban.

There is no workplace, group, club or family that doesn’t have its own in-house adjudicator. Sometimes it’s the wisest person in the cluster, other times the biggest blabbermouth. Nobody ever asks their opinion, but they nevertheless hasten to the presumed call and prance across the football pitches of our daily lives. “I’ve just had a row with my boyfriend/goalkeeper. Why are you sticking your big nose in?” Thus the girlfriend/left winger. But despite the invitation to keep his snout out, the ref arrives on the scene with a pained countenance and a ready-made solution. The upshot is that the boyfriend is given his marching orders, when a straightforward talking to may well have sufficed to patch up the spat with a less unfavourable finale.

“And the linesmen?”, I hear you utter. Yes, they should certainly not be left out of the fray. Linesmen are people who proffer assistance to referees when these are bent on snooping into other people’s existence. Indeed, your average linesman experiences a sense of fulfilment when he gets the chance to draw attention to an offside infraction. For example, you’re at a working lunch with a good-looking colleague and you’re spotted by the linesman who then flags the arbiter of that particular match (don’t speculate as to which, since only they know that). In any event, at his earliest convenience our self-appointed moderator will be up to your wife like a shot and she, for her part, will either misinterpret the tidings or else not altogether appreciate the intrusion (sometimes both).

How is one to get round all this? Easy-peasy. Issue a yellow card to referees and linesmen and, should they commit a second infringement, swiftly pull out the red one and then holler: “Oi, you, off!” The good thing about the rules of this game is that remedial measures of this sort are in fact entirely permissible.