Linesman lands FIFA's hottest international match

This is Local London October 12 Hughenden Valley linesman Mike Tingey has been appointed to officiate at one of the most controversial matches in World Cup history 23 years after he learned to become a referee in High Wycombe. Tingey, 38, has been chosen to run the line at today's World Cup qualifying match between Bahrain and Uzbekistan. The result of the original encounter has been declared invalid following a formal protest from the Uzbekistan Football Federation concerning a technical error by the referee of the match. He failed to allow Uzbekistan to retake a penalty after one of their players encroached the original kick. Instead, he mistakenly awarded Bahrain an indirect free kick which is against the rules. Uzbekistan successfully appealed and FIFA have ordered a rematch with a new set of officials. And Wednesday's match in Bahrain will complete a hectic four weeks for Tingey which began at Newcastle against Manchester City. From there he went on to Barcelona for their Champions League clash against Udinese and then on Sunday he was at Anfield running the line for the Liverpool Chelsea match. He said: "I've had some fantastic appointments. I've been very lucky." And he revealed that he only got into officiating because he wasn't good enough to get into his brother Derek's team. He said: "It was in the days when you were only allowed two substitutes and I always seemed to be the third one who would end up having to run the line. "My brother was a centre half and I got fed up of him shouting raise your flag' so I thought I had better learn the rules of the game properly." And Tingey has not looked back. He said: "Once I got involved things just snowballed and here we are now." The highlight of his career was doing the 2001 Michael Owen Liverpool versus Arsenal Cup Final. Anyone wanting to try and do a Tingey, should sign up for a referees' course at Wycombe Wanderers. The ten-week evening course gets underway on Monday, October 10 and will teach beginners everything they need to know.