SI

Jamie Vardy Took Whistle to Stop Play By Himself After Ref Went Down With Injury

When the referee goes down, someone has to step up.

Josh Wilson

Jamie Vardy takes matters into his own hands to stop play.
Jamie Vardy takes matters into his own hands to stop play. / @NBCSportsSoccer on X (formerly Twitter)

Soccer's clock stops for no man, but play can be stopped by the referee when the situation calls for it. Often, the case may be that a player goes down with injury, prompting a whistle blow from the referee on-field to pause play, of course, to be tacked on at the 45th or 90th minute of the match.

But what happens when the person going down with injury is the referee?

Well, we discovered just that on Saturday during a match between Southampton and Leicester.

Referee David Webb was hit in the head accidentally by Jordan Ayew as he ran past him and went down to the ground. Play had raged on from players who hadn't seen the incident. Leicester captain Jamie Vardy grabbed the official's hand that had the whistle in it and blew it to stop play.

Webb was replaced by Sam Barrott after leaving with the injury. He was able to leave the pitch on his feet.

Vardy and Ayew both scored in the 2-0 win over Southampton. Both clubs in this match will be relegated to the Championship for next season after being promoted for this season.

More on Sports Illustrated

feed

Published
Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

Home/Soccer