Wayne Rooney's infamous and obscene tirade of swearing against referee Graham Poll was forgotten too soon, as the era of player and manager power resulted in a climate of fear where officials seemed to give decisions based on reputations. Players surrounded officials and tried to intimidate them into giving decisions their way, or changing ones that had gone against them. It was having a detrimental effect throughout the game as officials, even in Sunday leagues, left in their droves. Without them there could be no game. Something had to be done to stem the alarming tide of officials leaving the game and to ensure that young players didn't copy the behaviour of top players by insulting and intimidating officials.

The FA responded with its Respect Campaign, which was launched at the grass-roots of the game first before being applied to all matches under its jurisdiction. We decided to investigate whether it was having an impact by attending a couple of matches selected at random – one from the Premier League and another from the Championship. The matches were Newcastle’s visit to Fulham and Cardiff City’s trip to Loftus Road to be entertained by Queen’s Park Rangers, one of the richest clubs in the world. This was after Iain Dowie had been sacked, but before former Portuguese international Paolo Sousa had been appointed manager of the west-London club – veteran midfielder Gareth Ainsworth had temporary charge. It proved to be an inspired choice as referee Lee Probert had a poor match and Cardiff City manager Dave Jones made his feelings clear afterwards and Ainsworth was sympathetic to the Bluebirds' manager.

The first ten minutes produced little of interest. Promising Argentinian youngster Emmanuel Ledesma was feeling his way back to match fitness caused by a loss of form and he started brightly with an inviting cross to Samuel di Carmine, but the striker failed to trouble Cardiff's goalkeeper Tom Heaton. It set the tone for most of the first half. .Joe Ledley has attracted admiring glances from Premier League clubs, but he was one of three Cardiff players stricken by a virus. Nevertheless, they travelled to Loftus Road separately from the rest of the squad, although Ledley's illness deprived fans of the chance to see an emerging English talent for ninety minutes, but the major talking point of this match curtailed his involvement in the match altogether. Ledley still had time to show what was missed, as eighteen minutes into the game he outwitted the veteran Italian midfielder and AS Roma legend Damiano Tommasi with a neat turn that resulted in a clumsy foul from Tommasi, but Kevin McNaughton wasted the free-kick.

Michael Chopra began his two-month return to Cardiff City on loan from Sunderland by immediately finding a place in Dave Jones' team. Shortly after McNaughten's effort Chopra reminded the travelling supporters what they had been missing with a well taken shot from the edge of the area that required the Rangers' keeper Radek Czerny's to tip round the post. Cardiff should have had a penalty midway through the first half, as Eddie Johnson was pulled down in the area by Martin Rowlands, yet the Bluebirds' appeals fell on deaf ears, but their sense of injustice would reach fever pitch five minutes later.

Lee Cook had moved a few miles from Fulham on loan to Rangers and he had an important part to play in this match. About ten metres into Cardiff's half Cook was clattered on the left wing by Darren Purse. It was clumsy and looked bad, especially as there was little danger, but was it really worthy of a straight red card? It wasn’t malicious as Purse, who has a reputation, for ill-judged tackles, had his eyes on the ball and challenged for it, but was beaten by quick feet as Cook had flicked the ball on just before Purse made contact with him. It was definitely a foul and a card was justified, but a straight red card seemed harsh and condemned Cardiff to have to defend for almost an hour. Jones was incensed and accused the officials of 'having no respect for his players.' Ledley was withdrawn and replaced by Gabor Gyepes. The sending off was later rescinded despite Jones' irate response that there was no point appealing such decisions. He accused Probert of lacking respect for his players and he had a point. An infamous Welsh miscarriage of justice case had just been in the news as witnesses who had perjured themselves against innocent men were held responsible for their lies, despite having been forced to lie by police officers. Jones wasn't the only person with a strong sense of injustice at that time, but there was still an hour to play after Purse was wrongly dismissed.