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Jim Finney


James "Jim" Finney (17 August 1924 – 1 April 2008) was an English football referee during the 1960s and 1970s, active on the FIFA list. He was born in St Helens in Lancashire (now Merseyside) but was based during his refereeing career in Hereford. Outside football he worked as a brewery representative.

He became a Football League linesman in 1957, stepping up to referee in 1959. He refereed the Amateur Cup final of that year. Finney then took charge of the 1962 FA Cup Final between Tottenham Hotspur and Burnley. Though the normal practice at the time was for the winning captain to keep the match ball, Danny Blanchflower presented Finney with the ball at the end of the game. He is reported to be one of five freemasons to have refereed the FA Cup Final.

Finney had been held in high regard within the domestic game for some time before this match. He was appointed as a linesman in the first European Nations Cup Final held in Paris in 1960, assisting Arthur Ellis. In May 1963, Finney was also the referee during the Scotland versus Austria match at Hampden Park, which he abandoned after 79 minutes. Finney later expressed concern that he thought "somebody would have been seriously hurt".

Later he was selected as one of the English referees at the 1966 World Cup, gaining some notoriety there for his handling of the Uruguay versus West Germany quarter-final in which he sent off Horacio Troche and Héctor Silva. That was the same day on which the German referee Rudolf Kreitlein sent off Argentinian player Antonio Rattin at Wembley, leading to a suggestion of partiality against the European referees.


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