REFEREE Pat Miller has taken charge of his last game after being injured in Hartlepool United’s win at Oxford on Tuesday.
The official fell awkwardly in the second half of Pools’ 2-0 triumph. He was stretchered off, and taken by ambulance to the John Radcliffe Hospital with a ruptured patella tendon.
The Luton official was due to retire at the end of the season, so the injury means Tuesday’s game was his last.
Oxford physiotherapist Andrew Proctor treated Miller on the pitch and said: “Our first fears were internal structural damage, because he heard a loud pop.
“You’re not going to do a lot of assessment, it’s just stabilising him and that’s why we got the paramedics on and strapped him up.’’
Pools defender Scott Harrison made light of the incident on the pitch. The referee’s vanishing spray – used to mark out defensive walls for free-kicks - came out of his holder and Harrison used it to mark out his body – the video, posted on Pool’s You Tube channel has now been viewed over a 360,000 times on the internet.
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