GRAHAM POLL wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea as a referee – but then that goes with the job.

He’s just as vain as you always suspected, confident in his own ability to say the least, and oblivious to criticism.

Yet as the audience at Halifax Town’s sporting dinner last week discovered, he does have the ability to take the mickey out of himself, and is even critical of some of his own performances.

He admitted that during one particularly nasty Manchester United-Arsenal confrontation Wayne Rooney told him to ‘f... off’ no fewer than 37 times during the first half.

“I bottled it, I should have given him one warning and then a red card the next time he swore at me. What chance do young referees have when the best in the business doesn’t do his job properly,” he said. Told you he has plenty of self belief!

As for the infamous three card trick during the last World Cup when he booked the same Croatian defender three times, Poll put it down to simple human error.

He erroneously marked one of the bookings against the Australian No 3 on his little pad – and that probably cost him the final.

I’ve often wondered why none of his assistants tipped him off – after all they were all wired up.

“Don't tell me about it. But for me none of them would even have been there,” retorted Poll, who has an answer for everything.

OF ALL the comments made in the wake of the weekend’s football the most interesting by far was Harry Redknapp’s assertion that young British managers are simply not in vogue.

Here is a man who has led Portsmouth to an unlikely FA Cup final triumph, just two years ago, and now faces a tantalising semi-final between his old and current employers Spurs – provided they beat Fulham in a replay.

Yet ’Arry Boy reckons if he were 20 years younger he probably wouldn’t get a job.

He cut his managerial teeth at Bournemouth, as incidentally so did Tony Pulis and Sean O’Driscoll both performing sterling work at Stoke and Doncaster respectively, but the influx of foreign owners has started a new trend.

“They will bring in names. People they have heard of because they were great players. I think every club will have a foreign owner eventually and that means more foreign coaches,” said Redknapp.

He obviously had Roberto Mancini in mind after the Italian was summoned by Manchester City’s billionaire investors to replace Mark Hughes even though the Welshman was steering City towards a Champions League place next season.